Followup

The NBA acknowledged the no-call on Fisher, saying it should've been a 2-shot foul. Which most people would agree with. Lakers fans are now going back and arguing about previous plays--travels on Duncan, Manu, the bogus shot-clock violation on the previous play, etc. Unfortunately those arguments are largely invalid because you have to draw the line somewhere or you can simply keep going further and further back, and it'll never end. I think the best thing to do is to draw the line at the last play, and if you can, on the play that the game clock runs out on... which in this case was the foul on Fisher.

Now, the Spurs were outplayed and didn't really deserve the win, but you have to concede that had the call been made, the outcome may have changed. The fact is that the no-call disallowed any chance of the Spurs to pull out a win. If you go further back than that, who knows what may have happened when there was still enough time left to reasonably make a play? If the Lakers retained possession on the play prior, maybe the Spurs force a turnover before they foul. Maybe Kobe misses a free throw or two. Who knows? The difference between the last play and the plays previous to that are that there is no way to predict the game's outcome based off the previous plays, but there is only one game outcome based on the final play--the one that happened.

But the fact is, there was another no-call on the same final play before Fish fouled Barry. Barry lifted his pivot foot before putting the ball on the floor and that is by definition a travel. So two no-calls, one for each team. So the refs blew two calls, and the outcome ended up being what it was, and that's the way things go.