LeBron walked out on postgame presser after Game 2 loss after discussing frustration with officiating pic.twitter.com/HzeiiCiulI
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) April 23, 2024
Lakers’ D’Angelo Russell Blasts NBA Officiating After Controversial Ruling https://t.co/JAGc6wI48L via @heavysan
— LakerTom (@LakerTom) April 23, 2024
From DLO article:
The Los Angeles Lakers let a prime opportunity slip away in Game 2 against the Denver Nuggets. After accumulating a 20-point lead, the team fell apart in the second half and allowed the Nuggets to come back and tie the game.
As the clock expired, Jamal Murray hit the game-winning jumper to send the Lakers back to Los Angeles down 0-2. There are many reasons why the Lakers lost the game but controversial officiating didn’t help. In the fourth quarter, Michael Porter Jr. was called for a foul while D’Angelo Russell was going for a layup.
After review, the officials overturned the call and Denver got the ball. However, some believed that the officials made the wrong decision. LeBron James called out the officials while Russell took to X to express that he believed that he was fouled.
Russell was clearly struck in the head by Porter but it came after his shot went up. Clearly, they didn’t think it was enough to warrant a foul. Had that call gone the other way, the Lakers may have never been in a position where Murray could hit a game-winning shot.
Lakers want it to be about this but it’s not. It just isn’t. The issue was taking their foot off the gas with a big lead late in the 4th. AD not being able to contain Jokic one-on-one. Rebounding…again…
It’s about the simple fact, and make no mistake it is a fact, that Denver believes they are, and probably is, better than us.
The Lakers played 83 regular season games and averaged over 24 free throw attempts per game. Our of 83 games, there were only 4 games where they had 13 or fewer attempts. Last night was 5th.
The play I don’t understand at all is DLO’s shooting foul getting reversed when he obviously got hit in the head. That he had let go of the shot doesn’t matter and a hit in the face in not incidental.
And nobody can tell me LeBron gets fair refereeing. That silly foul on him late in the 4th was inept and unfair, especially considering every time he drives he gets clobbered w/o any whistle.
Just call the game fair and the same for all 10 players.
Can’t blame a 20pt collapse on a call that happened in the damn 3rd quarter.
There’s a good argument the refs failure to make calls was a contributing factor to the Lakers losing the game since the difference in the end was a bucket at the buzzer. This was the 5th lowest number of free throw attempts by the Lakers the entire season. In fact, Nuggets actually got more attempts than Lakers.
We’re a veteran team and gotta know playoff basketball is a different beast from the regular season. The league actually acknowledged they instructed the refs to swallow their whistles DURING the season.. we thought it would change now? You have to make the adjustment. It was a huge disappointment to see our coach and 3 best players immediately bitching about the refs following that collapse.