Aside from the absolutely horrible play from both sides, the officiating was without question the worst I've seen this year! This crew should be fined and suspended for the travesty that happened tonight, Giracek might as well have not bothered to dribble for all the travelling he did and was never called for it and the technical on Shaq was a complete joke! The 6th foul was as phantom as there could possibly be and Utah acted as if they knew there was no chance they were going to get hit with a foul in the low post, they draped themselves all over Shaq all night long and got away with it. They set moving screens, no call, they hip checked all night, no call, and they slapped Payton silly all night, no call. What a joke! I don't mind the Lakers losing a hard fought game, but 8 against 5 is ridiculous! This one made me angry just because if you watched this one, no way this game was called even remotely fair.
But then I guess, to some, that means it was called the way it should have been, and the conspiracy broke down. Pethetic, absolutely pathetic.