Up until now, I have managed to keep this a secret - but now the cat is our of the bag - I am a coach as well as a referee (Padge - please don't puke on my shoes
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I have been in this situation as a coach - telling my players to press against a team that we were beating by about 50 points. The referee did exaclty what some here are suggesting - and clamped down on our play, calling fouls on our team, while similar contact by the other team went un-punished.
So what, you say? Well the other team ended up catching up (a little) and we only won by 32 points. Unfortunately we needed to win by 46 or more to ensure our place in the finals (we finished equal 4th on the table - so it comes down to points for/against).
In this case, the referees did not affect the outcome of the game, nor did they teach me (the coach) a lesson. They did however, punish my players, and effectively knocked us out of the post season.
The moral to this story - a foul in the last 10 seconds in the game, is a foul in the first 10 seconds of the game - regardless of how the game is going. Calling a game consistently is the one thing that referees MUST do.