The topic of referees and their impact on the game has been an ongoing debate amongst fans for decades. Referees are supposed to have no implicit bias towards any team, yet there are people who would argue otherwise. Many people say the refs like to give calls to the big markets because it would be better for the NBA. This was the case last night, May 1st, as the Knicks and Pacers played game 1, and in the clutch moments, Myles Turner got called for an offensive foul that was challenged by the coaches and was an unsuccessful challenge. That was the play that switched up the game and basically gave the Knicks the game.

This has happened multiple times in the history of the NBA and sports games as a whole. Tim Donaghy was a referee for the NBA from 1994 to 2007. In those times, he was notorious for rigging games. One of the games he was hearing about rigging was Game 6 in the 2002 NBA playoffs between the Kings and Lakers. The Lakers are the bigger market and are the ones down in this series. They were getting fouls that were kind of odd, like they weren’t even fouls, For no reason, in the 4th quarter of that game, the Lakers shot 27 free throws, including a foul on Bibby, where Kobe Bryant elbowed Bibby, and Bibby got the call, not Bryant. Even for the playoffs, that’s a lot of free throws, which ultimately decided the game between them and forced a game 7 that the Lakers would eventually win. This proved to many that these games were rigged.

The backstories behind officiating can be very controversial. Having a rigged game in any part can diminish and take down the reputation and revenue of the league. So the league will do anything to defend themselves from those allegations, but as we’ve seen, this isn’t always the case because there can always be outside factors.