Should have played better. Calls go every which way at the end. Best avoid being in a situation where you need the refs to send you to the line based on a foul that happens with about 2 seconds left on the clock, 30 feet from the hoop, while your man is sidestepping, ball on the ground, head facing away from the basket. Better avoid that because the overwhelming percentage of the time the call is not going to get made. Barry had a clear look and put the ball on the floor. Dumb. He has six inches or so on Fish and was unguarded for a moment. What the **** is he doing dribbling the ball? What an ***. If the play was designed to court a foul, dumb for it to unfold with the ball on the floor and the basket in a different county. The Lakers would have deserved to lose the game for doing some stupid **** down the stretch. Thing is, the Spurs blew it with a crap play over the last seconds. They were gifted new life, possible OT or the win, wrapped up in a red bow big enough for the whole world to see, and they laid an egg, a zero, a goose egg, a weak stream of piss. For three quarters of the game the calls obviously favored the Spurs. How did they treat those times when the calls went their way? They played so horribly that an almost embarrassing largesse of foul shots and the best night they have had at the charity stripe in weeks was used to climb into a ******* hole that even the Lakers and the refs couldn't help them out of when the last minute of push came to the last seconds of shove. They have only themselves to blame. Refs and calls/non-calls are a known hazard. Best play well enough for it not to matter. Spurs chewed it on that count and suffer the consequences.
I understand the frustration, though, in reality, you have to play through **** like that to win the title. Sometimes you can't because you aren't the better team. Such was definitely the case last night as, for 47 minutes, the Spurs failed to escape being in the hole, being faced with hoping the refs blow a foul ten yards from the hoop, ball on the floor, shooter in la la land.
Now its the chopping block in the real world LaLa Land. We'll see if the Lakes have what it takes to finish this in style.