FanPost

Bill Kennedy Is Dishonest, and It's Obvious

There were 3 egregiously bad calls made late in ECF game 4 against the Celtics, each of which could have changed the outcome of the game. All three were called by Bill Kennedy:

- Travel call on Garnett at 4:36 4th quarter: Replay clearly showed KG's pivot foot did not move. This was simply a made-up call by Kennedy to accomplish what he wanted to accomplish: help the Celtics lose. Jeff Van Gundy said after the replay: "That's not a travel in today's NBA."

- KG offensive foul at 0:21 4th quarter: A critical possession, obviously. Replay showed Lebron pulling KG to the ground on top of him. At worst, it could have been called a double foul. Naturally, Kennedy called it against KG. Without this bad call, the game would have likely been over in regulation.

- Paul Pierce 6th foul at 4:22 in OT -- whistled by Kennedy from deep, but NOT whistled by Joe Crawford, who was closest to the play. Apparently, Crawford thought it was a "play on" (which it was) but Bill Kennedy saw fit to call it anyway. Naturally, he called it against Boston at this critical point in the game.

As in the Philly series game 4 -- where Kennedy openly cheated against the Celtics from mid-1st-quarter through the end of the 3rd -- Kennedy once again did his best, late in ECF game 4, to swing the outcome to the Celtics' opponent. It seemed, though, that this time Joe Crawford -- a ref with his own set of ego problems, but NOT known to be particularly anti-Celtics (or anti-any-particular-team) -- countered Kennedy's efforts, most glaringly by calling Lebron's 6th foul in OT, which was of course huge. As it happened, James actually did commit that offensive foul, but whistling it did seem to balance out the much shakier earlier call by Kennedy against Pierce.

Btw... is this any way to run a multi-billion-dollar professional sports league?

The league needs to look into Bill Kennedy's performance, especially in Celtics games. It is well-known that he and Doc Rivers have had their public differences in the past. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/basketball/nba/03/20/rivers.ref.ap/ Now if Kennedy is letting his feelings about Rivers and the Celtics color his officiating in game after game -- and his actions in the Philly series and in this ECF game 4 indicate that he does -- then he should either be prohibited from working Celtics games, or fired altogether.

I would just fire him. He is obviously and egregiously biased, and is actively ruining the NBA's reputation among its own fans.


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