The Phantom Calls

Somebody doesn’t want the San Antonio Spurs to repeat as champions. There were two significant calls which were made turning the game into Dallas’ favor. First was the play where Brent Barry had a steal and was called for a foul after falling down while scrambling for the ball. Somehow the refs claimed that he tripped the Maverick player who was involved on the play. Replay verified that there was no contact.

The other critical call which was made was when Nowitzki drove into the lane to step on Timmeh’s foot turning his ankle. The referees are supposed to watch the defensive player in this situation and not wait to see if the offensive player falls over. Timmeh made no contact with Nowitzki which would indicate a foul, but Nowitzki crumpled after stepping on Timmeh’s foot.

The refs seemed to think it was a foul however changing the scene of the game dramatically. Tim was the catalyst behind the Spurs charge back to capture the lead in the fourth using their patent inside-out game. Ginobili kept the Spurs ahead by driving into the lane and making shots, but the fouls kept being called for Dallas.

33 personal fouls were called on the Spurs compared to 26 on the Mavericks. The Mavericks shot 50 free throws compared to San Antonio’s 32. Nowitzki alone shot 24 free throws on 9 field goal attempts. Even through all that, the game was called pretty well until the deciding fourth quarter.

So now I wonder if Timmeh will be fined for the comments he made during the post game press conference. "It was incredibly frustrating because of the type of fouls that were called that I didn't think were fouls," Duncan said. "I didn't touch him. He tried to draw contact and I tried to move out of his way."

Game 4 is Monday night at 8:30 in Dallas. Go Spurs Go!