NBA Commissioner David Stern wanted the Lakers to defend their two consecutive NBA championships in the finals. And whatever David wants, David gets.

Friday night, in game six of the Western Conference finals against the Sacramento Kings, in the most corruptly officiated pro basketball game I have ever seen, the referees charged the Kings with a foul, every time one of their players blinked at a Laker, but "let the Lakers play [their] game" — a euphemism for not calling fouls on the Lakers — as an obsequious Jim Gray of NBC volunteered to Shaquille O'Neal after the game. Gray helpfully left unsaid that the Lakers had gotten to shoot an unheard-of 27 free throws — making 21 — in the fourth quarter alone, which would have made clear that the referees weren't letting everyone "play their game."

The Lakers were down three games to two; a loss would have eliminated them, and sent the Kings on to their first championship finals since 1951, when as the Rochester Royals, they beat the New York Knickerbockers for their sole NBA championship. But the fix was in; the refs were not going to permit the Lakers to lose. They won, 106-102.

When O'Neal told interviewers that teams that won two or three championships had to do it different ways, I didn't know that this was what he meant.

Any doubt that the outcome was rigged was erased when, with one minute left in the game, Kobe Bryant tried to get free of tenacious Kings guard Mike Bibby, in order to catch an inbounds pass. Kobe got free, alright. He smashed Bibby in the nose with a forearm.

What did the refs do? Naturally, they called a foul ... on Bibby! Bryant drained two free throws, to bury the Kings. Adding insult to injury, the Kings had to burn their last timeout, in order to give the indispensable Bibby a chance to reflect on what day it was, and where he was playing.

A would-be mugger named Andre Bernard once broke my nose with less violence than Kobe Bryant applied to Mike Bibby. But I prevailed against Andre, thanks to my friend, Mr. Mace. Unfortunately, Bibby was playing unarmed.

Crooked pool is nothing new to the NBA. In 1996, David Stern ignored blatant tampering on the part of the Lakers, when they stole Shaquille O'Neal away from the Orlando Magic, so I guess something like Friday's fiasco was bound to happen.

At the highest levels, organized sports can be the closest thing to a vision of perfection in this world. (I'm obviously not talking about circus sideshows like the WWF, and some of professional boxing and the Olympics.) Unlike in the "real" world, where incompetents and crooks routinely prevail, and keep good men sidelined, the best sports can show us objective excellence and justice. When "Joe Cool" Montana was leading the San Francisco 49ers or John Elway was leading the Denver Broncos on come-from-behind drives in the last two minutes of playoff games or Super Bowls, I don't recall anything looking fixed. Likewise, when Michael Jordan drained his many "buzzer beaters" to win playoff games, in leading the Chicago Bulls to six championships, I don't recall him getting Laker-style help from the referees, or the basket being expanded for him.

Prior to last Friday, I had taken for granted that if the Lakers met my beloved Nets in the finals, Shaq, Kobe, & Co. would bury the Nets, like so many mob hit victims, in the Jersey swampland. But now, I'm angry, and I'm not taking anything for granted. Although I'm not a prayerful man, I'm going to take a page out of the book of a Guyanese woman I used to know, who said of an enemy, "I gonna say a prayer, and bind her spirit." That is good "for I," too. I gonna say a prayer, and bind the Lakers' spirits! You hear that, Shaq, Kobe, Phil? You sure you're invincible against my voodoo?