Lakers News: NBA Twitter Aghast At Insane Officiating In LA's Loss To Boston

Things got messy in an overtime TD Garden defeat.

Last night, your Los Angeles Lakers battled mightily against the Boston Celtics, but at the end of the day, Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, and, uh, the evening's officiating crew proved to be too much for LA to handle. Los Angeles fell to their arch rivals in overtime, 125-121.

The most egregious gaffe happened at the very end of regulation, when 19-time All-Star LA power forward LeBron James was fouled on a drive by Boston All-Star power forward Jayson Tatum. The officiating crew on hand opted not to call the foul, and allowed the game to continue into overtime. They have since conceded their error. 

It wasn't the first offense, either last night or in the last few games, which frequently were impacted by some, let's say questionable refereeing decisions.

NBA fans took to Twitter to catalogue the trouble throughout the night.

In the third quarter, Dennis Schröder was assessed a foul after trailing Tatum on a breakaway layup attempt... despite pretty deftly avoiding contact on the play.

Dennis Schroder got hit with a technical foul for his reaction on this play.

Good call or bad call? 🤔pic.twitter.com/0qSiEjmTmN

— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) January 29, 2023

Rob Perez of Underdog NBA had some thoughts:

???https://t.co/OMyiix5S8h pic.twitter.com/dCrDTqFJPy

— Rob Perez (@WorldWideWob) January 29, 2023

It certainly felt like a makeup call, compensating for the blown layup.

Dude NBA refs are so awful it’s insane #LakeShow pic.twitter.com/qCpdfwo9kn

— ∞ (@badr_xrr) January 29, 2023

Cuffs The Legend feels the way I do about it:

they wouldn’t have called a foul on Dennis if Tatum had made that layup and that’s that bullshit nba refs gotta stop doing!

— 73-9 and THEY LIED (@CuffsTheLegend) January 29, 2023

Soon after the bout, LA fan Lakers Vino got to work on some intrepid Photoshopping:

BRON VS. THE @NBA REFS HIGHLIGHTS COMING RIGHT AFTER THE GAME!!!!!! pic.twitter.com/AeRjJGnt6l

— 🦉 Lakers Vino (@VinoUncorked) January 29, 2023

Reporter Ashley Nevel felt similarly:

Another Lakers fan dropped a Spider-Man reference, but not the one you think:

A still of Sandra Bullock in "Birdbox" was quickly composited onto a ref's body, pretty convincingly (okay it's possible this was a preexisting Photoshop job):

NBA refs when working Lakers games all season pic.twitter.com/yjwuja4RFD

— LeSunshine (@BronTheGoatFr) January 29, 2023

James's reaction to the late-game call drew empathy from this appreciator:

Lebron is all of us watching these NBA refs blow calls SMH pic.twitter.com/7vXgkSy7Kg

— CarlosStory (@CarlosxcStory) January 29, 2023

We got some throwback Tim Donaghy action for good measure:

The man who’s teaching these current NBA refs pic.twitter.com/2SgEzhrwcF

— Christian Gonzalez (@Christian_Gee17) January 29, 2023

The Old Man And The Three producer Jason Gallagher had a bunch of excellent response tweets, but this one was tops for yours truly:

NBA refs all season long pic.twitter.com/ntyd3XgLzs

— Jason Gallagher (@jga41agher) January 26, 2023

Finally, Lakers 248's Doug McKain had some notes (I see no lies):

These pathetic refs should be fired on the spot.

The NBA owes the Lakers a massive apology for ass reffing all year.

pic.twitter.com/eQPCqWg6tB

— Doug McKain (@DMAC_LA) January 29, 2023

The abject misery with which poor LeBron James protested the call was, let's say, noticed:

Has LeBron ever had less fun playing basketball in his whole life?

— Josh Eberley 🇨🇦 (@JoshEberley) January 29, 2023

Brandon "Scoop B" Robinson of Bally Sports echoed the opinion of the majority of Twitter, and the refs themselves after the fact:

LeBron was def fouled BTW. Goodnight!

— 👑 Brandon “Scoop B” Robinson (@ScoopB) January 29, 2023