Sadly i couldn't agree more. I have loved the Jazz and the NBA my entire life, but currently I am very disappointed in the NBA. I am not even very interested in the Lakers Celtics final. It seemed a foregone conclusion months ago that these two teams would make it to the finals. I honestly believe that the NBA is rigged and I am so sick of it's superstars.

Why don't they call the games the same way, all the time, and make the same calls regardless of who the player is. Superstar treatment makes me sick and the NBA seems to be becoming increasingly more like entertainment than actual organized competitive basketball. Maybe I am just getting older and seeing the NBA for what it really was all along, but I am growing tired of it and definitely losing interest.

The thing with Fisher's foul was Barry was not in the act of shooting. He pump-faked, pullled it back and got fouled while driving around fisher and then pulling up for a jump shot. I don't play much basketball, but even I know after a pump-fake and contact I go right back up shooting. I can't remember if they were in the bonus, but it was not a shooting foul.

Someone needs to put you in the NBA national office and listen to you. Everything yiou said is so true. That, along with the proposed fine for flopping exposes the NBA. I hate flopping, but come on, you can't fine a guy. Just don't call the charge. It's bad enough that subjective calls are made, put fining is a childish effort to solve the problem.

i guess i dont understand the current rules, but isn't there supposes to be use of instant reply in the last two minutes of the half , due to the infamous blown calls against the jazz 10 yrs ago. i agree with the above post, the game is no fun to watch when it is so blatant that the big dogs can't be touched but a lesser star can be creamed and no call. david stearn you better start paying attention to your ref problem.

Doug,

Ya, let me know, will you, when they start calling the NBA game by the rule book. Then maybe I'll start watching it again.

The reason the NBA game is officiated like it is, is because the entertainment factor trumps all. The NBA is not about true competition, it’s about ENTERTAINMENT. When you realize this, the officiating makes complete sense.

I agree with the comment at 1:22 a.m. The worst part of the NBA is the superstar treatment that some of the players receive. It is so frustrating as a fan to see this happen. I don't think Paul Millsap or Ronnie Brewer have ever got the benefit of the doubt before. On the other hand, it's a foul if you breathe on Kobe, AI, T-Mac, etc. It's impossible to guard them because if you try to stop them from going to the hoop, it's automatically a foul. The funny thing is that you would think the refs would maybe give guys like Millsap and Brewer a call, just because they go out and play hard and never complain.

I know Karl Malone got to the point where he received superstar calls, but I would much rather just see the game called the same for everyone. I think college basketball still does a pretty good job of this. That's a big reason why anything can happen at the college level, and it makes March Madness so exciting. Maybe the NBA can learn a thing or two from the NCAA officials.

There is no possible way the NBA is rigged. You can't rig game winning shots. Why are you so surprised the Celtics and Lakers are in the Finals? The Celtics won 66 games this year and the Lakers have proven to be the best in the West. The only thing that bugs me about the NBA is the flopping/charge calls. They need to clean that up. This NBA season has been amazing and if you have really been an NBA fan your whole life you would agree. And how can you not be interested in this final? You can't tell me that the Detroit-Boston and Jazz-Houston series wasn't competitive basketball. Are we watching the same thing?

I don't remember hearing about the refs when Stockton and Malone played. Jazz fans are funny. They want every call. If it's for the Jazz it is a good call, if it's against the Jazz it is a bad call. Quit whining so much. That's way worse than the officiating. Oh and by the way, Kobe hardly went to the free throw line against the Spurs and the Lakers still won. The Jazz are just hackers. Play some D and you won't get called for so many fouls. Maybe if some of you quit watching the NBA, I won't have to read about your whining. The Jazz are a good team and they are fun to watch. Take your die-hard emotions out of it and enjoy it every now and then. And another thing, quit jumping on and off your teams bandwagon. It was like when the Utes went to the Fiesta Bowl everyone became a fan and now they don't even fill the stadium. Support your team whether they are good or bad and PLEASE quit with the whining.

If sports is to occupy the place it should in the hierarchy of what is or isn't important in life, and if all the talk about sports stars being role models for our youth is to mean anything, then you can't have a game with specific rules requiring consistent application and then apply those rules without consistency and in a manner that always favors the already strong and prominent over the weak and overlooked. Entertainment value is important, but not at the expense of societal values that are fundamental to a correct running of society. When I try to imagine how to explain the star treatment given certain NBA stars vis a vis the journeyman players to one of my children or grandchildren, and yet have any credibility when I talk to them about honesty, integrity, essential fairness, equality, etc., I am nonplussed. To take a perfectly constructed team sport like basketball, surrounded by all the success enjoyed by the current league, and then risk bastardizing the integrity of the whole thing by failing to enforce the rules consistently and fairly, thereby aggravating a significant portion of the viewing/paying public, seems insane, sick, and wrong.

Whiners? Sure. There are whiners everywhere, not just Jazz fans. It's a bias almost every fan has. When your team gets hosed you notice it because you feel it; when another team gets hosed, you don't care or notice so much because it's not personal.

What gets me about the NBA is the separate rules for superstars. I'm tired of seeing fine, hard-working players get hosed time and time again by the referees' preferential application of the rules. Like Joe P. just said, that kind of favoritism undermines the credibility and fundamental fairness of the game.

I shouldn't EVER have to listen to a commentator say "If you're (player x), you're not going to get that call." Ridiculous.

I think you missed the point. Jazz fans are not whining about a missed call. In fact, Doug Robinson doesn't even talk about that. I think 99% of fans everywhere are just sick of seeing "superstar" calls. What's a foul for Kobe Bryant should be the same for C.J. Miles. What's continuation for Allen Iverson should be the same for Luther Head. People are "whining" about the integrity of the NBA right now, and righfully so.

Did anybody watch ESPN's rebroadcast of Game 6 of the '87 Finals on Tuesday night? Officiating wasn't great back then, but at least the game hadn't yet turned into the ugly wrestling match that it is today. Plus, players could shoot the ball, would run the ball up the court, etc.

I'll admit that I'm excited about the Lakers - Celtics matchup, but it'll have to be really good for the NBA to regain lost ground. Anybody who watched that great Stanley Cup Finals knows that today's hockey is far more watchable and enjoyable than the NBA.