"We got robbed"

SAN JUAN (William Rosario's Somewhere in the Americas) - It's probably one of the most overused phrases by fans, coaches, players and even so-called reporters after the team of their preference loses a close game, and it has come to the forefront in terms of basketball on both sides of the spectrum, in the NBA and in international basketball, within a span of months.

I think we should just stop it. I'll tell you why later.

In the NBA it happened a week and a half ago, when the Los Angeles Clippers and Oklahoma City Thunder were tied at two games a piece in the second round of the playoffs.

As Marc J. Spears from Yahoo perfectly puts it: "The call in question came with 11.3 seconds left and the Clippers leading 104-102. Chris Paul had braced for a foul only to have Russell Westbrook force the ball from his hands. Thunder guard Reggie Jackson drove to the rim and was hit on the hand by Matt Barnes, jarring the ball out of bounds. The officials did not call a foul on Barnes, but said the Clippers retained possession. They stopped play to look at TV replays to determine who touched the ball last. The replays appeared to indicate Jackson had last touched the ball. The officials said otherwise, giving Oklahoma City possession."

So after the game ended, Doc Rivers, the head coach of the Clippers, who was livid after the refs' decision to award the ball to the Thunder, did not hold back.

"Everybody knows it was our ball. I think the bottom line is they thought it was a foul and made up for it. In my opinion, let's take away the replay system. Because that is our ball we win the game and we got robbed because of that call. And it is clear. Everybody in the arena saw it. That is why everybody was shocked when they said Oklahoma City. That was our ball," he said.

Of course, the Clippers, as it almost always happens in these disputed results, lost an eight-point lead in the final 45 seconds of the game. Paul, their leader, had an uncharacteristic meltdown in the clutch moments of the game.

"We stopped playing with 3:00 left, we were milking the clock. We turned the ball over. We came out of the time-out and we were supposed to foul (Kevin) Durant before he made the three. We made a comedy of errors but having said that we still have the right to win the game if it says it is our ball and that didn't happen. It is too bad for us. We have two more games to play but that could be a series-defining call and that is not right," Rivers went on.

So he did acknowledge it. And that's fair. But he did not do it without resorting back to the victim narrative right before closing his statement.

A similar thing happened at last year's FIBA Americas Championship.

The host team of Venezuela, who had to play the entire tournament without their star Greivis Vasquez, was on the verge of beating the odds by qualifying to the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup when they were dominating Puerto Rico in the first half of their second round match-up.

It was a packed house. Twelve thousand screaming fans in the Poliedro de Caracas cheered every miraculous shot that the Venezuela squad managed to hit.

But then it happened. Puerto Rico, led by a spirited and resilient performance from Jose Juan Barea and Renaldo Balkman, came back from what at one time was a 23-point deficit to tie the game and send it to overtime.

In overtime, Barea had the ball in his hands and with what seemed to be an expired shot clock made a huge three-pointer that shocked everybody in the coliseum. Puerto Rico won the game. Venezuela did not make it to the World Cup.

The frustration was apparent for every Venezuelan that felt it was their time to move on to the big stage.

"We got robbed," was a unanimous claim by everyone you ran into. Even their coach, Nestor "Che" Garcia, who I ran into after the game was finished and told me "how could they do this to us?". Of course, it was hard to not sympathize with a team and a man that had overcome so much to be there, and were within seconds of punching their ticket to Spain.

But that should have been the story, because it was a good story. Venezuela overachieved. They were definitely amazing in their performances night after night and should be remembered for the great things they did on the court during the tournament.

Sadly that was not the case. The victim narrative was once again put in place by fans who took screenshots of Barea's hand in synchronicity with the expired shot clock and even drew a big red circle to indicate the mistake of the referees.

Very few went back to that 23-point lead. Or went back to the immense amount of bad decisions the team made in the second half. They just united in the fact that they thought they were mistreated. That their sports destiny had not been fair.

And that is precisely where they lose me. Because I know they were there and watched the complete set of events, from start to finish and ended up handpicking those that were unfair to them.

I remember a Venezuelan reporter asking an official about the countries' possibilities if they chose to "protest the game".

The official said: "That's their prerogative, but know that once they do that, and I can guarantee this, we are going to look back at the whole game. And I can tell you this from my experience. You guys are going to lose by 10 points instead of by one, because I saw way more bad calls for Puerto Rico."

And that's what really bothers me about this "we got robbed" pronouncement. For some reason, it doesn't feel, at least for those of us who watch the games, as a true characterization of what really happened that night.

To choose the victim narrative is to lie to yourself and think that you did nothing to warrant your mishaps. Let's learn to be transparent and see the other side of the story. 

William Rosario

FIBA Americas

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