LeBron James fouls out as Pacers beat Heat in Game 4

[Grassy Knoll]

Source: usatoday.com

INDIANAPOLIS — In the biggest playoff game for this incarnation of the Indiana Pacers, Frank Vogel wanted to see how his team handled the situation.

Vogel got his answer. The gritty Pacers defeated the Miami Heat 99-92 and evened the best-of-seven Eastern Conference finals at 2-2. Now, the series has been condensed to a best-of-three: Game 5 is in Miami on Thursday, Game 6 in Indianapolis on Saturday and a potential Game 7 in Miami on Monday.

Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nba/playoffs/2013/05/28/miami-heat-vs-indiana-pacers-game-4-score-eastern-conference-finals/2368221/

[zonkers]

1. That was a battle. Some great moments. Hibbert and Grant came up big.

A great game by both teams. Wade had some moments. So did Allen. That dagger from the corner was sick. That one hardcore block by Lebron in the post was also sick. Can't wait for next game!

[NoMoreWarNow]

9. indeed-- it's actually been a great series so far

lots of drama.

[msongs]

2. not LBN nt

[Fearless]

3. 'Scuse me whilist I warm up the band....

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[Initech]

4. This Lakers fan says:

[leftynyc]

8. So does this Knick fan

I root for anyone who plays the Heat. GO PACERS!!!!

[SoapBox]

5. Go Pacers!

...hilarious that he fouled out.

[brush]

11. Those last two foul calls on Lebron were so bogus

Talk about home town calls. The refs seemed determined to get a Pacer win. Can't recall such blatantly bias and obvious officiating.

[twitcher]

12. I disagree

The officiating was bad, but it went both ways. They call that hip check all the time in other games, why should Lebron be immune? When they didn't reset the shot clock and took a basket away from the Pacers was that a home town call? That wasn't even debatable - just bad officiating that cost the Pacers 2 points.

[brush]

13. You're right about the shot clock call but . . .

. . . in the last minutes of a game the refs should let the players decide the outcome. I mean Lebron was tossed with two very questionable calls within 43 seconds with less than 2 minutes left.

I say let the players decide the game at crunch time, not some official. The Pacers had their best guys out there at the most important part of the game and the Heat didn't.

Not fair!

[LiberalFighter]

18. Let the players decide without the rules? Really?

[brush]

19. I see you don't watch much NBA ball

It's very rare that a ref makes those kind of ticky-tacky foul calls in the last minute when the game is on the line. It's even rarer, if ever, in a tense playoff game, and rarer still against the player everyone came to see play, not foul out. Jordan, Bird, Magic . . . they never got flagged for stuff like that, those should have been non-calls.

The players should decide the game, not the refs. And as far as rules go, both of those calls were judgement calls. Most other refs wouldn't have even called them. Maybe you don't know that Joey Crawford, that ref, has a rep for injecting himself into the outcome of games. Even one of the current Pacers was asked about the calls after the game and he said he knows to steer clear of Crawford because of his ego. The player even kissed a little butt on the air by looking into the camera and saying, "Hi, Joey. Howya doin', Joey."

Those fouls were a joke.

[Crowman1979]

6. My interest in pro-Basketball is zero right now.

Wake me up when the Pistons are in the playoffs.

[Nanjing to Seoul]

7. Wake me up never. NBA, to me, sucks as much as PGA, PBA, NASCAR and WTA

Give me my baseball, hockey and NFL any day of the week.

[Crowman1979]

14. Oh those four you've just mentioned, I would agree.

Although the NFL pissed me off with all of that Tebow BS and college football with Penn St. Maybe if Tebow has a career-ending injury and Penn St. winds up in a bowl-less drought that goes on for years to come, then maybe I'll watch football again.

[knitter4democracy]

15. Amen to that.

I only care if the Pistons play.

[WhoWoodaKnew]

10. LeBron didn't foul out to the very, very end of the game.

[zonkers]

16. It's a game later. And did Indiana suck it up. I just can't see them

going down without a fight. Next game ought to be awesome.

[Calista241]

17. That foul was bullshit btw.

The "post game frank discussion" between league officials and the refs must've swung things too far in the other direction. No way Birdman shouldn't have been booted from that game.