SAN ANTONIO--The San Antonio Spurs lost to the Boston Celtics on Saturday night for the first time since 1990, ending a run of dominance that saw them beat the C’s 18 straight times. After the game, Spurs players blamed the loss on an officiating crew that was “blatantly non-biased” and unwilling to come to their aid when the game was on the line.

“I don’t know what the hell happened out there,” said a frustrated Tim Duncan, who was whistled for three fouls, despite playing at home. “Those referees completely betrayed us. They had a chance at the end of the game to help us out and they didn’t come through. They called an offensive foul on Ginobli. Let me repeat that: they called an offensive foul on Manu Ginobli in the waning seconds of the game. At home. Here, at the AT & T Center. I don’t even…oh, forget it. It's only one game. Still, it’s always a shame to have the referees decide a game for you by being objective.”

Duncan was also infuriated with the inconsistency with which the officials called fouls. At time they would call them in favor of the Spurs, while at other times they called them in favor of the Celtics. At no time did they establish a clear, discernible pattern of bias.

“They did make some great calls in our favor,” Duncan recalled. “Like whenever Tony [Parker] drove into the lane, they would just blow a whistle on the nearest defender, even if he was literally running away from contact. But then there were other times when the Celtics would make really nice, clean defensive plays and not get called for fouls. Huh? Oh, sorry, I thought we were the San Antonio Spurs. We might as well have been the Memphis Frigging Bobcats. We might as well have been any team playing against us at home in the past eight years or so. That’s how bad it was.”

Even Ginobli, noted flopper and charge-taker, was denied his unusual dozen calls per game. At one point he launched himself into the third row of seats in an attempt to draw a charging call against Paul Pierce, but to no avail.

“I really thought I was going to get that call,” Ginobli said afterward. “Pierce was standing near the post when I ran up to him, brushed against his left hip, launched myself into the air, soared majestically over the crowd while screaming ‘foul,’ and landed in the third row. I then slowly pulled myself up, grimacing in pain, when I noticed that no foul was called. Well that’s it. That’s my whole defensive strategy right there. If you take that away from me you might as well cut off my right arm.”

Other disputed calls included:

A traveling call against Tony Parker on a play in which he took nine steps, stopped, jumped, landed, took four more steps, and drained a layup.

A foul call on Bruce Bowen in which he grabbed Paul Pierce’s head and slammed it against his knee several times until he was knocked unconscious.

A no-call on Rajon Rondo after he hit a crucial free throw late in the third quarter.

“I was actually pretty surprised they let us win that game,” Pierce told reporters afterward. “That just shows that the referees are human, too. They can have off nights. I’m sure they’ll make it up to the Spurs in the finals, though. There is no way these refs are going to let some upstart team come into this building and take a playoff game. They have way too much pride for that.”

On Monday, Bob Delaney, the lead official working the game, admitted that “mistakes were made.”

“Yes, mistakes were made on the part of the officials,” he said. “The Pierce call was the most egregious. We should have whistled him for a charge when he hit that game winning fadeaway jumper. At the very least I could have tried to get a hand on the shot. Sure, it might have looked a little biased, but here in the NBA we have a saying: Better to let the fans think you’re biased than to let them in on the awful truth that you are actually just completely incompetent.”

Copyright 2007, The Brushback - Do not reprint without permission. This article is satire and is not intended as actual news.