Technical

SECOND QUARTER. THE lead was up by almost ten points and the opponent was held scoreless during the first. An anonymous Amigo took the ball right into his hands and aimed for the basket. He dribbled back and fourth and back again facing a green defender at the left wing underneath the ring. He seemed to have been already fouled below before take off. As soon as he let loose the ball from his hands in an attempt to lure a foul for a pair of free throws, I took him to the ground and spanked the BALL from his hands as if grabbing a candy from a wandering kid in the park. No skin was bruised. No fingernails were blemished. Not even a strand of hair was pulled off. It was all BALL.
The instant I held the orange bouncing rubber, a loud beep was heard from afar. One of the refs called it a foul play while pointing an obscure finger right at me. He was 20 feet away and he looked pretty much the face of one of the bosses here, as one shooting guard pointed out.
But my instincts were buried to where my feet were. I cried a loud objection. I hollered an attention grabbing B-O-L-A, that was loud enough to wake up the silence that creeps the hallways during office hours.
When he wavered his hand gesturing number 97 to the committee table, I carelessly let out an almost 80% vulgar words contesting the call. The words were packed in a strong and crisp fashion and still carrying the same amount of decibels that could belt out ones ear wax and would terminate me if I would yell it instead to my manager.
It offended referee number 1 and soon, he quickly put his hands together with the right index finger touching the left palm while whistling a technical foul.
It’s my first time to be hurled with such description of play since the day I learn how to crawl. And I liked it. I really damn liked it to be whistled upon. Except for the fact that they gifted the opposing team 4 sets of free throws and kept the ball possession after.
I was burning hot inside with a purely wrong call and if I didn’t burst it out, my chest and head could have literally exploded.
Now I understand how Mark Cuban felt when the Dallas Mavericks lost the NBA finals due to a number of substantial referees’ mistakes.
We just came from a desperate loss brought by the top ranked team in our bracket, which we hoped and thought we’d almost won. I would certainly never dream of losing another game.
Before the buzzer for halftime break, I was whistled by none other than referee number 1 with succeeding personal fouls putting me in foul trouble with only couple of minutes of playing time.
I sat it out the entire third quarter.
The minute I entered fourth, Kickyo’ass was already struggling to score and the opponents were inching their way to overcome the lead. But it appeared mr. referee was still eyeing at me. I complained for a seemingly wrong backing violation call while on the bench, but I was put in a position to nod my head in agreement.
I was called with a 3-second violation on a fast break, how funny is that? And a loose ball in the shaded area fulfilled the fate of being finally driven out of the game.
Good thing, we won by a strand. We catapulted a play to break a tied score with 9 ticks in the game clock, but plans can change during execution. Instead of giving the ball to a heavily guarded Joff, Lawrence nailed the win with a toe-biting drive into the lane for an off the board lay-up.