Chris Townsend

See how they run, see how they run...

These NBA playoffs have had some doozies. No doubt about it, we're seeing highly competitive basketball in some of these series. Unfortunately, thanks to ferociously incompetent refereeing, we're also seeing games and series decided in far too large a part by men whose uniforms have no team names on them.

I held off criticizing the officiating too much in round one, when I felt that my Bulls were getting a raw deal in the series against the Celtics — but as the playoffs wear on and the refs continue to handle difficult situations with all the grace and poise of Sweeney Todd giving a good shave, I feel compelled to say something.

Understand it's not any one call that's drawing my ire, but the consistent inconsistency that we're seeing. Explain this to me: the apparently untouchable Rajon Rondo can smack Brad Miller in the face without making even the slightest attempt to go for the ball and get a regular, non-flagrant foul, then basically assault Kirk Hinrich, throwing him into the scorers table in a move that was totally outside the normal parameters of basketball and receive a Flagrant 1; then, just a few days later, Derek Fisher draws a Flagrant 2 and a one-game suspension for a hit on Luis Scola that was — while certainly excessive — essentially a basketball play.

Want to get really crazy? How about the fact that Deron Williams put a similar smackdown on Andrew Bynum in the first round and drew a regular, non-flagrant foul. Granted Fisher's play was more violent, but was it two levels of foul more violent? Not a chance.

And it gets worse... The officiating crew who tossed Fisher? You got it, the same Joey Crawford-led crew that failed to eject Rondo. Plus, consider this — if Rondo had simply drawn a Flagrant 1 for his foul on Miller and a Flagrant 2 for his wild attack on Hinrich, he would have been FORCED to sit out for a game just for accruing three flagrant foul points, nevermind additional league action.

You may remember Joey Crawford as the referee who was suspended by the league after he picked a fight with Tim Duncan — probably the least offensive man in basketball — and threw him out of a game while he was sitting on the bench doing basically nothing. On Wednesday night he and his crew failed to control the game early when it started to get chippy; called a technical foul on Lamar Odom for, as far as I can tell, walking away from a potential altercation; called a foul on Ron Artest for getting elbowed in the neck by Kobe Bryant, then called two quick technicals on Ron-Ron and tossed him from the game for trying to explain that he was getting abused by the Lakers' Golden Child; and, for some icing on the crap-cake that was their performance, made the questionable call on Fisher.

Again, it's not one call. Having seen the replay of Fisher's shoulder-check on Scola, I'm not convinced he didn't deserve a Flagrant 2 or a suspension — perhaps he did. But I can't reconcile that call with all the other calls I just mentioned, be it Rondo or Deron Williams or whoever.

The mark of good officiating in any sport is consistency. We hear it about baseball all the time: it doesn't matter exactly what an umpire's strike zone is, just that it stays the same over the course of a game. If Joey Crawford was an umpire, he would be calling chest-high strikes in the first, ankle-high strikes in the second and no strikes at all in the third; then for good measure he'd probably toss a manager who was sitting in the dugout chewing on a toothpick.

The inconsistency is maddening, and it hurts the game. Fix it, NBA. Fix it now.

I'm Kolsky, and I've said enough.