June 10, 2016
Andre Iguodala is flitting across the 65-inch flat screen in Joey Crawford’s man cave, fumbling the ball, trying to regain possession as Cleveland Cavaliers defenders converge.
Whistle. Travel on Iguodala.
“No, no, no, Derrick,” Crawford says, referring to referee Derrick Stafford. “The rule of thumb is, don’t guess. The defense is so close, (a Cavalier) might have touched it.”
Which would mean Iguodala was merely contending for a loose ball, not guilty of a violation. And that Stafford blew the call.
The replay unspools.
“Please don’t touch it,” Crawford says to the screen.
None of the Cleveland players did. Stafford was correct.
This is how game nights are these days for the 64-year-old Crawford, retired since last November after nearly 39 years as an NBA referee. If others watch the NBA Finals and root for either the Cavaliers or Iguodala’s Golden State Warriors, Crawford is partial only to the three-man officiating teams.
“My wife has to grab me,” he says, “because she knows I’m going to say something anyway: ‘You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.’ Or I go like this: ‘What, you have a bet on the game? Is that what it was?’ ”
Growing up in Philadelphia (and later Havertown), it is the only club he ever aspired to. His dad, Shag, and older brother, Jerry, were long-time major league baseball umpires, but Joey gravitated to basketball. Started out at age 18 reffing youth leagues, then moved on to the beer leagues – “$8 games,” he calls them. Graduated to the Eastern League (now the CBA), and finally, in 1977, the NBA.
His career – colorful and, at times, controversial – encompassed 2,561 games, second-most all time, and 374 playoff games, which is tops. Fifty of those were in the Finals, the last of which was Game Four, last spring in Cleveland. His right knee was already barking at him by then – he fell repeatedly in games – and friends were gently asking him to pack it in over the summer.
Crawford tried to soldier on, but his knee would not allow him to continue beyond a Nov. 8 Pacers-Cavs game in Cleveland. He hoped to rehab and return March 1, but soon realized that was unrealistic. Which is why he was parked on the sectional sofa in the basement of his Newtown Square home on Wednesday night.
His wife of 44 years, Mary, elects to leave Joey and me to watch Game Three of the Finals by ourselves. She retires to a main floor replete with photos of the couple with their three daughters and 10 grandchildren.
“You know what you miss the most?” he asks, looking toward the TV. “This happening tonight. If you have this Game Three, this is major stuff. … As a ref, you’re trying to stay calm, cool and collected, but at the same time, your stomach’s just churning like crazy.”
Crawford is sitting at one end of the sectional, his knee propped up on a lounger; replacement surgery is inevitable. He spends his time doting on the grandkids, serving as an assistant coach for an AAU girls team and helping out at the NBA’s Replay Center in Secaucus, N.J.
But how does one replace the rush of game night?
“You don’t,” he says.
This particular game turns out to be a dud, the Cavs whipping the Warriors 120-90 to cut Golden State’s series lead to 2-1. There is time enough for asides.
One of them concerns the integrity of the game. On this, Crawford is bullish. He insists disgraced referee Tim Donaghy, who in 2007 pleaded guilty to federal charges that he bet on games he officiated (and made calls affecting the point spread), was a lone wolf.
At the same time, Crawford says, “He really wounded us. We knew that he was the only one, but we went through some terrible times then.”
Donaghy is, like Crawford, a Cardinal O’Hara graduate. They are not close, however, having engaged in a fistfight before a referees’ meeting at a New Jersey hotel in 2001. Donaghy has claimed that Crawford slapped him, and he responded by dropping him with a left hook.
“It wasn’t what he made it out to be,” Crawford says of the confrontation.
Donaghy’s subsequent transgressions led the FBI to investigate the other refs, and since then the NBA has pledged greater transparency. It has resulted in things like the Last Two Minutes report – the “L2M,” as it is known – which the officials’ union opposes but Crawford likes because he believes it shows how often the refs are correct.
Still, there are those who view the game with a jaundiced eye. And sometimes they cross paths with Crawford.
It doesn’t always go well.
“My wife has to grab me,” he says, “because she knows I’m going to say something anyway: ‘You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.’ Or I go like this: ‘What, you have a bet on the game? Is that what it was?’ ”
He has never been one to back away from a scrap, having notably ejected San Antonio’s Tim Duncan from a 2007 game when he believed Duncan was laughing at him from the bench. Crawford was suspended from the playoffs for that stunt, the only time he didn’t work the postseason in his career, but sees it as a life-changing moment.
“When I was doing stuff in my career, I was not happy when I did it, but I kept doing it,” he says. “If everybody on the staff was doing it, then I would have been OK. But I knew that it wasn’t the way that you were supposed to ref.”
He began seeing a sports psychologist, Dr. Joel Fish, and believes he became a better official, not to mention a better person. And certainly he seems content as he sits there, watching the Cavs close out a masterful performance.
“You love these kind of games,” he says. “It might be bad for ratings, but you don’t want a two- or three-point game. This is ideal. All you’re doing now is calling plays so the next crew (in Game Four) doesn’t have to clean up your mess.”
A tidy ending. It’s all anyone can hope for.
