Athletes are routinely expected to shoulder all the blame when their team loses.  You know what I mean – “even if that call was wrong, blah blah blah” they are supposed to overcome it.  The bad call didn’t lose it, THEY lost if by not being perfect.  Doesn’t matter that the same is true of the other team, who could have done more to win but won anyway because they got the call.

Now we have this clichéd crap again in response to game 3 of the NBA finals.  Sure, there is no guarantee James would have hit all 3 free throws (as he should have been awarded since by common NBA continuation interpretation) or the Cavs would have won in overtime if he did.  But they should have had the chance.  What I would like to know is why the refs always get a free pass from the mainstream on this?  Why always “yeah, bad call, BUT…” and then blame the losing team?  Well, to use the zebraphiles logic back on them, “EVEN IF” the Cavaliers had earlier chances, that doesn’t change the fact that Bob Delaney missed the biggest call of the game – that EVERY DAMN PERSON BUT HIM saw live WITHOUT the benefit of replay – and eliminated any chance this series had of becoming competitive.  Yeah, he does not get the hero worship and salary of the star athletes.  But his career last a helluva long longer, and he still gets paid a helluva lot more than me.  Why the hell SHOULDN’T he get roasted for his incompetence?  How the hell can he miss an INTENTIONAL foul RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIS NOSE?  Like much of the officiating this season, and David Stern’s petty bureaucrat non-leadership with the Suns’ suspension, this was pathetic.