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Lakers News: NBA Twitter Aghast At Insane Officiating In LA's Loss To Boston

Things got messy in an overtime TD Garden defeat.
Alex Kirschenbaum|
Lakers News: NBA Twitter Aghast At Insane Officiating In LA's Loss To Boston
Lakers News: NBA Twitter Aghast At Insane Officiating In LA's Loss To Boston

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Last night, your Los Angeles Lakers battled mightily against the Boston Celtics, but at the end of the day, Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, and, uh, the evening's officiating crew proved to be too much for LA to handle. Los Angeles fell to their arch rivals in overtime, 125-121.

The most egregious gaffe happened at the very end of regulation, when 19-time All-Star LA power forward LeBron James was fouled on a drive by Boston All-Star power forward Jayson Tatum. The officiating crew on hand opted not to call the foul, and allowed the game to continue into overtime. They have since conceded their error. 

It wasn't the first offense, either last night or in the last few games, which frequently were impacted by some, let's say questionable refereeing decisions.

NBA fans took to Twitter to catalogue the trouble throughout the night.

In the third quarter, Dennis Schröder was assessed a foul after trailing Tatum on a breakaway layup attempt... despite pretty deftly avoiding contact on the play.

Rob Perez of Underdog NBA had some thoughts:

It certainly felt like a makeup call, compensating for the blown layup.

Cuffs The Legend feels the way I do about it:

Soon after the bout, LA fan Lakers Vino got to work on some intrepid Photoshopping:

Reporter Ashley Nevel felt similarly:

Another Lakers fan dropped a Spider-Man reference, but not the one you think:

A still of Sandra Bullock in "Birdbox" was quickly composited onto a ref's body, pretty convincingly (okay it's possible this was a preexisting Photoshop job):

James's reaction to the late-game call drew empathy from this appreciator:

We got some throwback Tim Donaghy action for good measure:

The Old Man And The Three producer Jason Gallagher had a bunch of excellent response tweets, but this one was tops for yours truly:

Finally, Lakers 248's Doug McKain had some notes (I see no lies):

The abject misery with which poor LeBron James protested the call was, let's say, noticed:

Brandon "Scoop B" Robinson of Bally Sports echoed the opinion of the majority of Twitter, and the refs themselves after the fact:

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Alex Kirschenbaum
ALEX KIRSCHENBAUM

Currently also a scribe for Newsweek, Hoops Rumors, The Sporting News and "Gremlins" director Joe Dante's film site Trailers From Hell, Alex is an alum of Men's Journal, Grizzlies fan site Grizzly Bear Blues, and Bulls fan sites Blog-A-Bull and Pippen Ain't Easy, among others.

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