If nothing else, it would be CLASSIC highlight footage.

2-Henry does *not* say, look how sad Kobe is at not getting a hand slap. What he *says* is, how sad is it that Shaq doesn’t slap him back. You can’t even see Kobe’s face. I actually wrote Henry back and said I thought it had nothing to do with Shaq dissing Kobe, just Shaq was just lost in the moment.

In fact, Henry doesn’t even say that–he just quotes Jason Kottke saying it. You can make the point that that’s tacit endorsement, but the fact remains that Jason didn’t say that Kobe looked sad, either.

3-Heh. Henry clearly does not like most Lakers fanboys.

5-The only thing I find inflammatory about this is the title. The text–mostly written by Shelley Smith, not Henry–is about the Lakers deciding not to foul the Nuggets in kind. This is a problem?

6-Do you really disagree with this? I find it totally disingenous of Kobe that he thinks we should buy his “I meant to do that” act. So yes, I would find it more refreshing if he just admitted that he didn’t have it all planned, that the team actually tried various things, and settled on what worked. That is the way that many problems get solved around the world. Maybe I wouldn’t have worded it the way Henry did, but I agree with the sentiment. I love Kobe’s game, I think he’s unfairly maligned, but this bit of him needing to show he was always in control is just tiresome.

7-Actually I agree with you on this one. I didn’t see this particular clip, but I saw replays of the play, and I just don’t see anything controversial about the call. Could it have been a non-call? Sure. But I would have called that a foul.

Look. There have been lots of times I have been frustrated with Henry, because we go back and forth, he makes a point, I make a point, and just when I think I’m about to convince him he might have made an error, he just stops replying. It’s annoying. I figure he’s concluding that I’m just acting on my biases. And I think he’s acting on *his* biases. But I see just as much bias in people railing on Henry here as I do in Henry himself. Henry’s post about Kobe’s artistry, his perfection, against LeBron’s rough-hewn reliance on size and power? I don’t see anybody mentioning that here. As I said, look for signs of his bias, and you’ll find them aplenty, because the Lakers are buzz, and Henry’s going to write a lot about them, both good and bad, both right and wrong.

By your own account, you say this is relatively recent. Do you think it’s more likely that (a) Henry has recently changed his opinion of the Lakers, (b) Henry has recently lost his ability to hide his hatred of the Lakers, or (c) the Lakers are in the news more now, and they aren’t rolling as much as we’d like?

Kurt gives even-handed criticism of the Lakers here, and we value him for it. But I get the distinct feeling that if Abbott said the same things, he’d be criticized for it. Too much bad rep. And there’s that Blazer fandom.

If they win the challenge then it’s a jump ball or you institute some kind of challenge possession arrow.

Nobody gives a rats @ss about oficiating in a blow out. But in a close game – everyone is a critic.

Having said that, the Lakers must understand that the Nuggets will get the benefit of calls as they will be playing at home and, nevertheless, must keep their heads in the game and try to close this thing out tonight.

As to Max’s arguments themselves, I find them about as convincing as you do. It is the classic thing: If you go into a situation looking for something to confirm your suspicion that Kobe is a self-serving egomaniac, you’ll find it. Kobe is not media-savvy enough to avoid providing that.

I haven’t asked Henry what he thinks personally of Kobe. I suspect that he isn’t predisposed to think highly of him personally, but I really don’t know. I do know that he has written highly of Kobe’s talent. I didn’t see anyone complain about that here, or even mention it. But if you go into a situation looking for something to confirm your suspicion that Henry is a Kobe-hater, you’ll find it. Henry is not FB&G-savvy enough to avoid providing that (or he just doesn’t care).

While I’m on the topic, I find something eerily similar between Max’s thoughts and the referee criticism. Both are self-serving. They both give the speaker street cred. No way I’m falling for Kobe’s act. I demand high-quality calls from the officials.

Kurt’s right: There’s too much criticism of the officials on this forum, because it’s all too vague. I’ve seen lots of “the refereeing sucks worse than ever” and precious little “here’s what I’d like them to do better.” Even Game 5, which seemed to satisfy most people here, did not quite satisfy *every* last FB&G’er. Otherwise, the whole thing smacks of “In my day, the refereeing quality was *this* high.”

I personally think the NBA should implement a challenge rule – Each team gets 1 challenge per game which you can only begin to use with 2 minutes remaining in the game. I think allowing teams too many challenges will slow down the game too much, but allowing teams an opportunity to challenge a big call within 2 minutes would do a lot in my opinion.

Imagine Orlando being allowed to challenge whether Pietrius really fouled him with 4 seconds left in game 4 or the Lakers allowed to review whether JR Smith committed a violation on the jump ball.

Either way, something has to be done about the officiating and based on what we’ve seen you can bet Denver is going to get all the calls in game 6