Spurs don't blame loss on refs

They can certainly complain about that final, fateful play.
They had pretty reasonable justification to moan about the whistle that wasn't blown.
But you know what?
The San Antonio Spurs passed.
The Spurs resisted Tuesday night when presented with yet another chance to fume about the presence of the referee they dread seeing more than any other, presumably because they know the truth.
Which is to say that they've had way too many opportunities in these Western Conference finals to bray about one non-call from Joey Crawford, no matter how crucial the timing.
Brent Barry definitely did appear to be fouled on the dribble by Derek Fisher just before the Game 4 buzzer sounded, which seemingly should have sent him to the line for two free throws to force overtime. When the call didn't come, Barry's hopeless heave at the horn sealed a 93-91 defeat to the Los Angeles that edged San Antonio to the brink of elimination ... and another failure to win back-to-back championships.
Yet it's instructive to note that Barry -- who had the playoff game of his life ruined by the final score -- was the Spurs' loudest non-complainer.
Bones knows.
"That play," Barry said, "was not where the game was lost."
You could make a strong case that the Spurs shouldn't even have been in the position to tie or win this Game 4 on their final possession. Television replays indicate that Fisher's shot with 6.9 seconds to go grazed the rim before bouncing out of bounds off of Robert Horry's leg, meaning that the Lakers should have had a new shot clock instead of asking Kobe Bryant to hurry a fadeaway jumper after the ensuing timeout. A new shot clock would have forced San Antonio to foul Bryant as opposed to getting the ball back off Bryant's miss to draw up a potential game-winning play.
You can then make an even stronger case that the Spurs needn't waste time looking for scapegoats, even after a loss that shoved them into a huge hole, when the Lakers have been consistently charitable in this series, furnishing San Antonio with various openings to be the team with a 3-1 lead.
It's the Spurs who couldn't hold that 20-point lead in Game 1 when they had an immediate opening to unnerve their younger challengers. It's the Spurs who wiped out L.A.'s early 14-point lead in Game 4 but squandered countless opportunities to land a haymaker and snatch the lead, even when the Lakers kept inviting them back ... all the way through to Bryant's brain lock in the final minute and a rushed layup when he should have been dribbling seconds off the clock.
Crawford? Except for that last one, Tuesday's whistles mostly favored the Spurs, who shot 26 free throws to the Lakers' 19 ... and who happily watched Bryant go the line zero times. If anyone was unnerved by Crawford's first San Antonio appearance of the playoffs, it was actually Lakers coach Phil Jackson, who was so enraged by the early fouls called on Fisher and Lamar Odom that he complained about the refereeing during his in-game TNT interview between the first and second quarters.