Lakers’ Darvin Ham says LeBron James, ‘the best player on Earth,’ can’t get a call

BOSTON — After the Lakers lost to the Celtics, partially because of a blown missed foul call on LeBron James, there was plenty of frustration and anger to go around. Los Angeles has dealt with missed calls in the past couple weeks, which is why Lakers coach Darvin Ham remarked he doesn’t want to “see another last two-minute report” showing they were wronged.

Saturday’s loss was just the latest instance for the Lakers, who fell 125-121 in overtime to the Celtics. The missed foul call came late in regulation when James went strong to the bucket and looked like he had a great chance at the game-winning layup. But Jayson Tatum fouled James as Tatum got all arm, but that call was blown as there was no whistle. The game went into overtime as the Celtics pulled away from the Lakers.

All that frustration is why Ham said “the best player on Earth can’t get a call — it’s amazing.”

“You have to call a cat a cat,” Ham said. “You can’t look at something and try to pretend it’s not what it is. He’s a guy that tries hard to play the right. Doesn’t flop. Plays downhill, plays a strong, physical brand of basketball. Just because he doesn’t flop or doesn’t flail and he’s not screaming when he’s shooting the ball like I see a ton of other players doing, he gets penalized for it.”

James voiced his own frustrations at the game, pointing out the missed calls from recent Lakers losses.

The officials said in a pool report postgame that they missed the call. The Lakers were also called for a technical foul because of the missed call when Patrick Beverley brought a camera to an official with a supposed image showing that James was fouled. But Beverley was instead called for the tech.

Ham said James does it right in that his superstar doesn’t flop for calls compared to other stars in the league. He said he saw the same thing with Giannis Antetokounmpo when he was a Bucks assistant coach, along with Shaquille O’Neal when Ham was a player.

“Those guys that play physical and really try to focus on finishing plays, sometimes it doesn’t go in their favor,” Ham said. “But you see other guys whimpering on every shot every time they get bumped. I think they’re working on their hard snap. They’re the ones getting the whistles.”

©2023 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit masslive.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.