DALLAS — It goes without saying that you don’t foul out the best player on a weak call down the stretch of a must-win NBA Finals game.
You don’t snatch away the drama of the final series because of a foul that required minutes of deliberation to uphold after a challenge.
But that’s what the referees did Wednesday night with Luka Doncic, who was whistled for a block on Jaylen Brown for his sixth foul. Doncic then watched the final four minutes from the locker room, as Dallas’ comeback fell short in Wednesday’s 106-99 Game 3 to give Boston a 3-0 series advantage.
Doncic, who was called for four fouls in the fourth quarter, was playing lazy defense, per usual. That part was on him. He doesn’t move his feet. Brown drove at Doncic and the Mavs forward was halfway between taking a charge and trying to get out of the way. But Brown also pushed off Doncic and the right call was a no call.
Especially under those circumstances. Jason Kidd challenged the foul and the Dallas arena groaned when it was deemed unsuccessful. The Mavericks, who turned a 21-point deficit in the fourth quarter into a 1-point deficit, were outscored in the final three minutes, 13-7.
Game over. Series over.
“We couldn’t play physical. I don’t know. I don’t want to say nothing,” Doncic said. “You know, six fouls in the NBA Finals, basically I’m like this (motions with palms out). C’mon, man.”
Mavs coach Jason Kidd took the high road.
“They called a foul. I was stuck. I had to challenge it, so … had to challenge because it was a close call,” he said. “But the referee called it a foul. Got to move on, move forward.”
Somewhere from his seat inside American Airlines Center, Adam Silver was probably cringing. His league benefits from a competitive series. It’s good for business. The more games, the more viewership on TV, the more tickets sold, the bigger the revenue.
But now the drama is virtually gone.
And as New Yorkers, we can only say, “Not Boston again.”
The city with banners galore and their silly Lucky The Leprechaun is on the brink of adding another to their collection. As you probably know, no NBA team has ever recovered from such a deficit. The Mavericks will be the 157th team to try after the previous 156 failed.
So with a little assistance from the referees, the odds are overwhelmingly giving the Celtics their 18th championship, breaking the tie with the Lakers for the NBA record. Boston also would get its sixth title in either the NBA, MLB and NFL since 2013. In the same span, NYC — which has double the number of Boston’s teams — has zero championships.
Clearly, we’re doing something wrong.
And the wrong starts with the Brooklyn Nets.
Way back in 2013, Billy King traded too many draft picks to the Celtics. Two of them became Jayson Tatum and Brown, the duo that combined for 61 points Wednesday. Agewise, they’re only in their mid-20s and have the Celtics’ playoff record this year at 15-2.
Still, their biggest problem in recent years is folding in crunch time. And it almost happened again Wednesday, when the Celtics managed just two points over nearly five minutes of the fourth quarter and saw their should-be insurmountable lead dwindle.
And maybe it would’ve dissolved fully if Doncic was in the game. Maybe it wouldn’t. We’ll never know, and that’s the shame of the call.
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