Took in the game with my brother - he picked up two seats for me for Christmas. Decent seats - 16th row. Previously, the closest I'd been was the 22nd row. So, the 16th row was nice.
Naturally, being an official, I couldn't help watch the officials at times. They were 41 (Ken Mauer), 47 (Bernie Adams), and 73 (Ed Malloy). Ken was the CC.
Ken Mauer - had a solid game. Had a couple calls/non-calls that were obviously made/not-made for entertainment value. Only thing is that I'd rather them be not-made/made for integral value. JMO. I wonder if he's the Kerry Fraser of the NBA. He's got a head full of gel and seems to always want to look good/cool by the way he stands and runs.
Bernie Adams - let's just say that all things being equal, I'd rather see a game where he wasn't officiating. Many times I did not agree with his call selection, including a travel call that was *very* inconsistent with the game. Naturally, it took away a Raptors basket. He made alot of 'extra' signals, such as the NFL bobbled-the-ball signal used along the sidelines. Weird thing about it was that he did it for like 10 seconds! Ok, maybe not 10, but definitely 3-4 seconds longer than he needed to. It was probably 5-6 seconds in duration. It looked dumb. Other times during the game he gave 'extra' signals. They looked dumb too.
Ed Malloy - good ref. I was most impressed with his call selection. I felt that he had the best game of the 3. Anything I disagreed with could be attributed to the fact that I was 16 rows up. The only thing I didn't like was that he's always bend over at the waist. As L bouncing the ball to the FTer, to the thrower-in, etc. Being so tall (and very very thin), it looked weird. (I'd say he's 6'6".)
As a crew - they had a few hiccups that I will not happen in my V or provincial games, let alone think should happen in an NBA game.
#1) There was a time where they had no ball to re-start the game on a throw-in. Yup - for like 90 seconds. During the previous stoppage in play, they had a promo where 2 people with different coloured basketballs tried to score baskets. The game ball inadvertantly got mixed up with the person trying to score with the orange basketballs and was taken off the court in the ball rack.
#2) A blarge. Yup. Ed, as L, signals PC and Ken, as T, signals block. Each of them went whistle - signal right away. There was no chance to 'make eye contact with their P'. The 2 of them got together and went with Ken's call - the block. The contact was on the lane line; sure it originated from the T's area, but it was deep enough into the key that the L saw (or could have seen) all action before the contact. My thought on the call? A PC.
The crew did have 2 triple-whistles which I thought were great. In each case, one official was looking outside of the NFHS/NCAA AOR. In both cases, I have no problem with the triple-whistle.
I guess what I learned from the game, from a philosophical POV, is that if you've got a foul, you've got a foul and it should be called. The responsibility now rests on the official on being consistent. There were many circumstances where calls were made outside of the AOR that we're used to. Maybe the official 10 feet from the play didn't see the push in the back, but the official 30 feet away did.