This is not hard to imagine, and Donaghy's stopry is not that iunlikely. DOnaghy said that the league would direct ref's attention to certain calls to watch for. IOW< the league office says to the refs in the playoffs "watch for Yao ming's moving screens" or "Tim Hardaway's supposed killer cross-over is really a carry (my personal peeve)" or something like that and so the refs all go out and call thos particualr calls very tightly. Maybe they don't throw the game, but in a close game that is enough to put them over the top.
Besides, did you watch the 2002 game 6 between the Kings and the Lakers? It is easy to see a fix there, a much more overt fix than the one DOnaghy is talking about here. That game looked rigged and just about everybody thought so at the time.
__________________
Sorry for th e tpyos.
|