Was Brent Barry Fouled?

Everyone saw the Spurs vs Lakers game Tuesday night. The game got a rating of at least 30.0 in San Antonio and it seemed like everyone in town was watching as the Spurs tried to make a comeback. The Spurs have 2.1 seconds left in the game, they inbound the ball to Brent Barry, he goes up for a 3-point shot to win the game, Derek Fisher jumps up in the air, Barry takes a dribble, is hit in the back of the head by Fisher's Elbow, Barry misses the off-balanced shot and the game is over. No foul called. LA takes a 3-1 lead over the San Antonio Spurs just like that.

Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said "if I was an official, I wouldn't have called that a foul." Lakers coach Phil Jackson said it was clearly a foul that did not get called. He also noted that the officials missed a call prior to that one which should have awarded the Laker's a full 24-second shot clock with 5.1 seconds left in the game. The officials missed two critical calls within the last 5 seconds of the game.

After the game on TNT, Charles Barkley talked about how the foul was not called because no official wants to make a call that is going to decide the game. Isn't that their job? Why wouldn't an official call the match fair? In my opinion, if an official is scared to make a call because it will decide a game, then he doesn't need to be officiating. Since when do we all quit on our jobs because we are afraid of the outcome of our decisions? Those officials should not have missed two very important calls in the last 5 seconds of the game. Were they star struck with Eva Longoria's appearance at the game that they couldn't pay attention to the play?

The TNT commentators after the game also said the officials didn't call the foul because Brent Barry didn't act it out. "Barry didn't sell the foul" they said. I didn't know a foul wasn't a foul if you don't act like you got bumped. Basically what they are saying is that if the Spurs start falling down and crying every time they get bumped, we should get a foul called. I didn't know those were the rules in the NBA. I thought a foul was a foul and that was it. According to Wikipedia, "In basketball, a personal foul is a breach of the rules that concerns illegal personal contact with an opponent." Nowhere in that definition does it say, one must act as if they were contacted by an opponent, or "sell the foul." In any other game, that foul would have been called and all three officials know it. It's too bad they couldn't do their job last night and it cost the Spurs the game.