Of the three referees assigned to game two between the Heat and Mavericks, one was suspended in 2007 for challenging Tim Duncan to a fight, another spent five months in jail, and the third once ejected the Celtics' Paul Pierce for, well, no one really knows what. All three of them have a storied history of calling lots and lots of fouls.
Referee Ken Mauer, one of two felons on tonight's staff, had the particular distinction of calling five technical fouls in 10 seconds back in January, and was fined in April after being accused of calling a Phoenix player a "little bitch" and then booting two players for objecting. He was also convicted of felony tax evasion in 2000 after he, along with dozens of other NBA refs, was caught taking his league-issued first-class airline tickets, downgrading them to coach and keeping the difference. Oh, and then not paying more than $26,000 in taxes for it. He spent five months in jail.
Ed Malloy doesn't have Mauer's criminal pedigree, though there was someone named Edward Malloy was arrested here in Florida a few months ago. He was charged with domestic battery and illegal use of the people's eyebrow:
Eyebrow or no, Malloy the referee certainly gave the Celtics a coronary when he, among other things, booted The Truth from the fourth quarter of game 1 in the playoff series against the Heat. The video offers little explanation, and neither does the actual explanation, but hey, he still has a right to vote in the United States, so at least he can hold that over Mauer if there's a debate.
Crew chief Joey Crawford, who was also implicated in the NBA ref ticket scandal, ejected Tim Duncan for a game while Duncan was sitting on the bench. Duncan then said Crawford had yelled "Do you want to fight?" earlier in the game, and Crawford was suspended. Though it's somehow fitting that the only active ref to work 2,000 games looks suspiciously like Mr. Magoo:
Game on.
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