Turns Out LeBron James Traveled On 'No-Call' Against Celtics, But Lakers Won't Stop Whining About Officiating
LeBron James and the Lakers (including their fans) hopped on a soapbox after Saturday night's loss against the Boston Celtics to complain about lopsided officiating going against the LA team.
Well, once you dig into the controversial play, there's more to it than LA's opinion.
With the score tied 105-105, LeBron drove to the basket for a layup only to get hit on the arm by Celtics star Jayson Tatum. No foul was called by the official and the game went into overtime, where the Lakers had another shot at winning the game but fumbled the opportunity, losing 125-121.
LeBron went hysterical after the no-call, and his supporters hopped online to suggest NBA refs hold a bias against James.
Turns out they actually did him a favor on that play by not calling an evident travel en route to the basket.
New baseline footage released from the final seconds of regulation shows LeBron taking THREE big steps to the basket, with the ref keeping the silent whistle tucked in his mouth.
WATCH:
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3!!!
The outrage following the game was tremendous, prompting the NBA referees union to release a statement on Sunday, calling the non-foul call on LeBron "gut-wrenching."
James, his teammates and Lakers nation's overreactions fed a narrative that LA has been denied win after win due to bad officiating.
Had the 13th-seeded Lakers followed through on their outrage with an overtime performance to match, perhaps they could have been celebrating a win Saturday morning. But instead, they shouted to the Southland sky, begging the NBA to take action and gift LeBron the "win" he never deserved against the Celtics.
Sports will always be a meritocracy where the better team, that day, will win in the end.
The Lakers and their fans profess that this is a squad that's serious about winning; the same 23-28 team that's in the middle of a crucial road-trip stretch but still opted to rest their top players on Monday night against the Nets, only to lose yet again. Who's to blame there?