A nice overall game flow is not what fans saw when the Lakers played the Blazers on Saturday night.
The whistle was active and erratic during the opening quarter. Portland was awarded a whopping 22 free
throws, which was the most in any quarter for any team this year. To contextualize that even further, the Blazers average 27 free throws per game. The Lakers only took three free throws in the opening quarter and ended the night with 21. The Blazers shot more free throws in one quarter than the Lakers did all game
Given that Portland dominated Los Angeles, nothing the officials did caused the Lakers to lose.
However, just because the way a game was called didn’t affect the result doesn’t mean the decisions were right, or consistently ruled the same way.
This officiating conversation was part of the dialogue postgame, with Lakers head coach JJ Redick revealing that the referees acknowledged their inconsistency.
“There’s always going to be fouls,” Redick said. “You can sit there and go through and watch every single [foul]. I do it sometimes. I’ll watch film and I’ll watch a play and ‘Wait a minute. Let me rewind that, zoom in, slow it down.’ The officials dont have that luxury. It’s more about the way the game is called. They got off to a bad start tonight and they admitted that to me.
“And then they were all over the map. Making calls and not actually making a call. That happened multiple times where we have to go over, ‘What’s going on? What’s the actual call here?’ I couldn’t get great communication from Pat [Frasher] all night, which we’ll put in the feedback. I’ve talked about it. It’s not to single them out or it’s not the reason we lost. For whatever reason, you’d have to ask probably the other 29 coaches, it feels like the inconsistency night to night within a game has been there for most of these crews.”
This isn’t the first time Redick has shown frustration with the officials.
Earlier this season, he seemed to reach his breaking point with the inconsistency from the refs combined with the NBA not communicating with him after he complained.
At least in the Blazers game, the officials acknowledged the bad start, even if Redick was displeased with the communication he got from crew chief Pat Fraser.
Another odd call later in this game was the flagrant foul on LeBron James.
He went up to attempt a block a shot by Donovan Clingan and the play was deemed a flagrant 1 foul. That seems like an odd call given the replay. If what LeBron did is the standard criteria for a flagrant call, then no player can ever contest a shot in the air without it being deemed a flagrant.
It’s hard for Redick and the Lakers to adjust to the officiating if what’s a foul and what isn’t is changing game to game and even play-by-play.
Given that this has been a theme for Redick and the Lakers, they’ll have to keep bringing it up and try to better understand what’s allowed throughout the year.
You can follow Edwin on Twitter at @ECreates88 or on Bluesky at @ecreates88.bsky.social.
