NBA Nba Referees

The Bulls went into Cleveland on Thursday and pulled out a hard-fought win over the Cavaliers. It was a low-scoring, defensive struggle, as neither team shot the ball very well, so it's not surprising that the game came down to the final play.

LeBron James drove to the basket with three seconds left and his team trailing by one, and was met by two defenders when he got there -- Luol Deng, who was guarding him from the play's outset, and Joakim Noah, who came over to help at the last second. James appeared to jump into Noah, and there was definitely contact. But somewhat incredibly, the refs swallowed their whistles, and the Bulls won the game.

Was it the right call? Read on and judge for yourself.

On Thursday, a memo from the NBA to all 30 teams was leaked and subsequently reported on by Chris Sheridan of ESPN and tweeted about by Chris Mannix of SI. The purpose of the memo was to reiterate a "no-tipping" policy regarding officials and arena or locker room personnel.

Long story short, backstage personnel have long done favors and personal errands for officials before and after games, and in the latest CBA negotiations, a policy was put in place to end it. The memo clearly states that the league does not feel the pre-existing actions have tampered with games, but a conclusion was reached to eliminate it regardless.

"This is an important change to the CBA," the memo states, as reported by ESPN. "While we do not believe that the pre-existing practice of tipping locker room attendants has affected the integrity of the officiating in any way, it could be perceived in a negative light, and it is therefore best to eliminate this practice."

Fans can wave goodbye in these last few exhibition games to the replacement officials who will disappear quietly at the end of the week.

The NBA's regular, locked-out referees will be back on the job for the start of the season Tuesday after a labor agreement was reached this week between the league and the union's executive committee.

It won't become official until Friday when the 57 tenured referees ratify the deal in a union meeting, but they all are making arrangements today to attend a training camp Saturday, Sunday and Monday in New Jersey.

"Yes, it's done,'' said one source very close to the negotiations who asked that his name not be used. "They're coming back to work. That was the goal all along.''

The labor dispute between the NBA and its referees may come to an end later this week, and the regular season may start with the regular referees calling the games.

According to a report from Howard Beck of the New York Times, negotiators for both sides agreed to the basics of a new deal on Tuesday, and it's one that's expected to be ratified by the referees' union when they vote on it later this week.

I don't believe David Stern has jurisdiction over the entire basketball world; it just seems like that's the case occasionally. It'd be silly to think, however, that Stern won't have words with leaders of Euroleague and the Israeli Basketball Association after Maccabi Tel Aviv coach Pini Gershon held up his team's exhibition game against the Knicks in Madison Square Garden for nearly 10 minutes by refusing to leave the court when an NBA replacement referee ejected him.

Earlier this week, the NBA fined Washington's Gilbert Arenas $25,000 for refusing to speak; today, it fined Larry Brown and the Bobcats a combined $120,000 for Brown talking too much. Brown hasn't been happy with the NBA's replacement referees all preseason, and his frustration boiled over on Monday when he was ejected from Charlotte's game against the Hawks in a contest that featured 61 fouls and five total technical fouls.

An hour before the Phoenix Suns were set to play their first preseason game of the year, I asked the team's head coach, Alvin Gentry, how he felt about the prospect of replacement referees calling the games. His response?

"You think I'm touching that one?" Gentry joked. "You want to see the memo I got from the league?"

Actually, I did, but he didn't have it handy. The point was, replacement referees are a touchy subject, and complaints about them were supposed to be kept to the bare minimum by team personnel.

Apparently, Larry Brown didn't get the memo. Because he flipped out and was ejected by the replacement refs during his Bobcats' preseason game Monday night against the Atlanta Hawks.

For the second game in a row, replacement officials have completely botched routine free-throw procedures in Detroit.

During Monday's game between the Pistons and the Heat, the referees failed to whistle a dead ball after Ben Wallace tossed up an air ball on a free-throw attempt in the first half. Worse yet, in the fourth quarter, the officials allowed Will Bynum, a career 77.8% shooter from the stripe, to shoot free throws for Maceo Baston, only realizing their mistake after Miami's bench complained when Bynum drained them both. After conferring, the officials took the points off the board and sent Baston to the line, where he missed both attempts.

Bynum pleaded innocence after Monday's game, telling FanHouse he heard a referee tell him to take the line. From the officials' perspective, I'm not sure what's worse: Bynum telling a fib, which shows how easily they were fooled; or Bynum telling the truth, which proves that all three refs weren't on the same page. Either way, it looks bad ... but not as bad as what happened Wednesday.

CLEVELAND -- The Shaq show was overshadowed.

Center Shaquille O'Neal made his preseason debut for Cleveland on Tuesday night, looking good in a 92-87 win over Charlotte at Quicken Loans Arena. But most of the talk after the game centered on Delonte West's continued troubles and Bobcats coach Larry Brown's frustration with replacement officials.

A source said after the game that West will not be at Cavaliers practice Wednesday, and it's possible his absence could continue beyond that. The source said he will be in the Washington D.C. area Wednesday to address legal matters concerning his Sept. 17 arrest in Maryland after police said he was pulled over for speeding on a motorcycle while carrying two loaded handguns and a loaded shotgun in a guitar case.

I'm not the type of fan who bemoans expanded replay use. It does slow down the game, and can kill a team (or both teams') flow. But considering the importance of winning, and the innate challenges of officiating basketball, anything that can help the referees should be implemented, so long as games don't begin stretching to four hours.

I don't think the new instant replay rules will tack on too much time; they make complete sense. Referees can now consult replay to decide whether a shot got off or foul was committed before a shot clock violation occurred. And in the final two minutes of regulation or in overtime, referees can consult the tape to see who last touched the ball before it went out-of-bounds.

These situations will occur rarely -- no more than once a game on average for the shot clock rule, and less frequently for the out-of-bounds scenario. And if it saves just one mistakenly lost game, it'll be worth any time concessions.