“We knew we were the better team.” Sacramento, which had never won a playoff game before in the Lakers’ Staples Center, broke that streak in Game 3, winning 103-90. “We just wanted to get back to our Cow Palace even.” Then came a statement he repeated like a mantra throughout his interview. “At this point, focused on going to get at least one win to get back home-court advantage,” Pollard said. Both Webber and Kings center (and former Laker) Vlade Divac nearly fouled out while the oftentimes foul-prone O’Neal, the most physically dominant force in the game, was called for just two fouls while racking up 26 points, 9 rebounds and 4 blocks. Though no one thought much of it at the time, the lead official of Game 1, an NBA veteran named Dick Bavetta, reffed an extremely tight game in the post. Lakers’ supernovas Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal paced the visitors in both games, while Webber and Bibby did their best to match suit while getting more out of the role players surrounding them in an offense that emphasized motion, passing and cutting to the rim. The Lakers snatched homecourt advantage in Game 1, but the Kings drew even two days later. ![]() I’d never experienced anything quite like it,” said writer James Ham, the editor of ESPN’s Kings site, Cowbell Kingdom. “It felt like the arena was completely alive. The teams owners, brothers and businessmen Joe and Gavin Maloof, led the way from their courtside seats, running from section to section like hype men at a rap concert. Kings fans, who routinely sold out Arco Arena during seasons of atrocious basketball, brought it to another level now, complete with ringing cowbells the decibel level during the 2002 playoffs was measured as high as 112, about the same level of a jet engine. “Familiarity breeds animosity,” Pollard said, citing the multiple times the in-state rivals, representing the coast and “cow town,” as Lakers coach Phil Jackson contemptuously referred to California’s inland capital, had played over the years in the preseason, regular season and postseason. The Lakers had beaten the Kings both of the previous years in the playoffs en route to titles, but Sacramento now had clutch-shooting point guard Mike Bibby on its already deep roster, and held home court advantage over their rivals to the south for the first time-the spoils of an NBA-best 61-21 regular season record. The Greatest Show on Court, Sacramento had enthused casual fans and NBA junkies alike since 1999 with legendary assistant coach Pete Carril’s Princeton offense that produced a unique combination of flash and fundamentals. “There’s no question in my mind that we were the better team.” Pollard was a reserve power forward and center for the Kings, a bleach blonde energizer known as much for his candor as for his rebounding. "If we get to re-rack that series, the Kings beat the Lakers 99 out of 100 times in a seven-games series,” former Sacramento player Scot Pollard said in a phone interview. ![]() “League-preferred” being, of course, the result that generates the most revenue. “But the referees/league didn’t allow the better team to win.”ĭonaghy, a convicted felon for betting on games he officiated and who Stern has insisted was a lone “rogue official” whose claims about other referees can’t be taken seriously, has written at length about the ways he says officials influence games, often to help produce a league-preferred result. ![]() “Sacramento had the best team in the league,” former NBA referee Tim Donaghy wrote in an email interview about the series. ![]() Two games were decided in the final seconds, and the climactic Game 7 went into overtime. The Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant-led Lakers were the defending NBA champions, while the Kings, with star Chris Webber and a superb supporting cast, seemed poised for a breakthrough. Years of consecutive playoff matches bred fierce competition between the players, and palpable hatred between their fans. A decade later, it remains the first piece of evidence for anyone building a case that the NBA is rigged. This year’s playoffs added a dubious and crucial non-call benefitting the Miami Heat in their Eastern Conference matchup against the Boston Celtics to the conspiracy canon.īut the mother ship of NBA conspiracy theories remains Game 6 of the classic 2002 Western Conference Finals between the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers and the upstart Sacramento Kings. In a league where savvy bettors consider which referees are assigned to a game, everything from the Patrick Ewing lottery, to Michael Jordan’s first retirement (or was it a suspension?), to Dwyane Wade’s record-setting parade to the free throw line in the 2006 NBA Finals has earned a cloud of suspicion. The NBA has birthed more conspiracy theories than Roswell.
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