Head Games

Paul Pierce played the role of hero on Tuesday night knocking down big shot after big shot for the Celtics in their overtime victory over the Bulls. For the first time in NBA history, three games in the same series have been decided in overtime.

Yet, despite Pierce's heroics, Boston's thrilling OT victory at home in Game 5 will be remembered for a Rajon Rondo's hard foul in the final seconds on Chicago's Brad Miller.

Orlando also won a Game 5 on its home floor as Dwight Howard's 24 points and 24 rebounds helped lift the Magic to a 13-point victory over the Philadelphia 76ers and take the 3-2 series advantage heading into Game 6.

Like Pierce, Howard's monster game will also be overshadowed by a blow to the head. Howard nailed the 76ers Sam Dalembert with an elbow to the head three minutes into Game 5 and was issued a technical foul. The following day, after reviewing tape of the incident, the NBA suspended Howard for Game 6 in Philly.

In case you missed it, here's a look at both plays.

Normally, I'm not one to criticize NBA officials. I feel like most people use poor officiating as a crutch to fall back on when they don't know enough about the actual game to find anything better to talk about.

However, on Tuesday, it looked like the officials botched both calls and in both instances the team committing the foul was rewarded greatly.

We'll start with Dwight Howard. The NBA rulebook clearly states, "A player, coach or trainer must be ejected for ... An elbow foul which makes contact above shoulder level."

As you can see, the rulebook clearly states that a player is to be ejected for the exact same kind of foul the Howard committed. Instead, by issuing Howard just a technical foul, he was allowed to remain in the game, a game in which he completely dominated on both ends of the floor, and the Magic won rather easily.

Had Howard been ejected just three minutes into the game, the Magic would have been reeling, and Philly could have delivered a knockout blow of their own and stole the decisive Game 5 and home court away from the Magic.

Now, even despite the devastating suspension for Game 6, the Magic are still in the driver's seat for this series. Even if they lose Game 6 in Philly without Howard, they'll still have a fresh and motivated Dwight Howard for the deciding Game 7 on their home floor.

The league probably made the right call by suspending Howard on Wednesday, but it's too little too late for Philly, as their best chance to win the series was to take both Games 5 and 6. Now, because the rules were bent to cater to a superstar, if only temporarily, the 76ers are faced with the daunting best-case-scenario of having to win a Game 7 on the road to advance to the next round.

Still, the lack of an ejection for Dwight Howard is a slight mistake compared to the call (or no-call in this case) made on the Rajon Rondo foul in the closing seconds of game five of the Celtics/Bulls series.

Already this postseason, there have been six flagrant fouls called around the league, and almost every single flagrant foul involves some sort of blow to the head, whether it was intentional or not.

How many times over the past two seasons have we seen a "flagrant one" foul called because a defending player has made contact with the shooter's head trying to stop a breakaway, regardless of the fouler's intent? The NBA has made it a point of emphasis to call flagrant fouls on those types of plays recently in an effort to protect its high-flying superstars from potentially serious injuries.

Hell, even Chauncey Billups, winner of this year's Joe Dumars award for sportsmanship, was issued a flagrant foul this postseason for hitting Rasual Butler high and hard on a fast break. Chauncey wasn't trying to hurt Butler, but a blow to the head is a blow to the head, and the officials have been calling it a flagrant foul for the better part of two seasons.

That is, right up until it happens with a playoff game on the line. When it happens then, it falls somewhere in the popular "hard playoff foul" category, and Brad Miller is basically told to suck it up and hit both free throws.

Had a flagrant foul been called, even if Miller missed one of his two free throws (a probability seeing as how he was clearly shaken up on the play, although how much is debatable) the Bulls would have still been able to take the ball out of bounds and have one play to win the game.

Brad Miller did a good job of not losing his cool after the foul and doing something dumb that could have cost his team, but is it possible that he remained too calm?

Think about this, if Miller would have played up how hurt he was, maybe yelled at Rondo to the point of having to be restrained, or even just walked over to the official to show him how badly his lip was cut, it may have given the impression to the officials that the foul in question could have possibly been worse than initially thought.

If Miller does a better job of planting the flagrant foul seed in the official's minds, perhaps they take a different mindset into reviewing the tape, and decide amongst the three of them that it was indeed a flagrant foul and the Bulls would get two shots and the ball.

One final possession for the Bulls at least guaranteed them one chance to win the game, even if that chance boils down to no more than a desperation three at the buzzer. A desperation three still has more of a success rate than a tip in off a missed free throw with only two seconds to play.

Maybe what Rondo did really does fit under the category of "hard playoff foul" and the right call was made. That's not really for anyone besides the officials to decide. But if the entire regular season and most of the playoffs are going to be officiated a certain way, and the final seconds of a critical game five are to be officiated a different way, the league is leaving the door wide open for more unneeded criticism of its referees.

By now, there should be a rule in place that clearly states whether blows to the head, inadvertent or not, should be considered flagrant fouls. Having a clear-cut definition of the rule one way or the other would have eliminated any confusion at the end of that game, and we would have spent the two days between games discussing how great Paul Pierce was down the stretch.

Instead, regrettably, the biggest story so far to come out of quite possibly the greatest first round matchup in NBA history revolves around a call made (or not made) by the referees. Nobody wins in that situation, and the optimist in me hopes that this issue will be addressed this offseason so we can keep the focus on the great playmaking that's been happening this postseason and not on the difficult-to-comprehend determinations of the refs.