Next time, Antoine, hug him, kiss him, take him out to dinner

By now, everyone knows that the NBA has officially apologized for blowing the call in the final seconds of Saturday night's Dallas-Denver game. The league now agrees that Antoine Wright fouled Carmelo Anthony and that the Nuggets should have been awarded the ball out of bounds with only about a second left. Instead, Anthony hoisted a three-pointer at the buzzer that gave the Nuggets a 1-point victory and an insurmountable 3-0 advantage in this second-round NBA playoff series.

Personally, I don't have as much of a problem with the refs on this call as I do Antoine Wright. It is well known in NBA circles that refs don't blow whistles for minor infractions in the closing seconds of games. You see it all the time, every game. The refs wisely want the players to decide the outcome. Therefore, Wright should have done more than casually swiped Anthony. He should have bear-hugged him. Leave no doubt in anyone's mind. "We have a foul to give and I'm giving it right here, right now!"

There are a lot of reasons the Mavs lost this heartbreaker, most of them of their own doing (Dirk, in spite of a monumental effort, missing his last five field goal attempts; the Mavs not building a comfortable lead in the first quarter when Denver missed 15 of its first 17 field goal attempts; missing four free throws in the fourth quarter; allowing Denver to score too quickly when the Mavs were ahead by four with 33 seconds to play). Blaming the refs for this no-call is a cop-out and a poor way to shift responsibility.