Every NBA fan remembers this Lakers vs Kings matchup as the most notorious playoff game ever seen.
In fact, die-hard NBA fans believe that this game was surely rigged by the league to help the Lakers stretch the series to a Game 7 and eventually win it to advance to the NBA Finals.
These allegations are one of the strongest ever made in the NBA's history and for good reasons.
The Lakers were down 3-2 in the series. One more loss and they would have been out and would miss out on their three-peat. The Kings were outplaying the Lakers and had a big lead. But suddenly the Lakers come back and win the game instead. How?
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The Lakers shot 27 free throws in the last quarter. 27!! This was more free throws the entire Kings team had in the entire game.
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There were so many bad calls in the entire game that the Kings' two big men, Vlade Divac and Scot Pollard both got fouled out No one was touching Kobe or Shaq but a foul call was made.
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On the other hand, the Kings were getting brutally fouled. Shaq literally threw Bibby to the floor and Kobe elbowed him so hard. But no foul? A few bad calls are obvious but these were way too obvious. The Lakers won by 4 points and all these bad calls played a role in that.
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Everyone was outraged with the calls made and called this a rigged game. Tim Donaghy confessed in 2008 that two refs were company men and probably did what they were told. But because of Tim's bad reputation, the claims were dismissed. Till date there is no proof of the NBA rigging this game. What do you think?
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