Do officials know what’s best for the NBA when they’re in the middle of the action in a playoff game?

There’s no doubt about it, I write about this at length in the book “Personal Foul.” It’s a situation where officials are well aware of what goes on and what’s best for the league. Obviously, in this series, what’s best for the league is putting Orlando in a little bit of an advantage and it seems to me that’s certainly what’s taking place. When you talk about Perkins being suspended, I think you have to look at the fact that [Dwight] Howard is looking at a possible suspension for the way he flailed his elbow off and hit Big Baby [Glen Davis] in the face.

I don’t know if you guys remember, but there was a situation a couple years ago where Kobe Bryant was consistently doing that and he was suspended during the regular season. I know the playoffs and regular season don’t follow the same set of rules, but I think that Boston should be looking at the fact that if they’re going to suspend Perkins, why isn’t Howard going to be suspended for that flail of the elbow?

Firstly, let me just say it was nice that Donaghy plugged his own book while answering this question.  ”I write about this at length in the book ‘Personal Foul.” Plugging your own book in an answer to a question clearly has to take away some credibility from the answer, right?  And considering Donaghy had zero credibility to begin with, I think he said this statement with negative credibility.

As far as the Dwight Howard elbows go, I understand he throws a lot of them.  I just didn’t think his shot at Davis was intentional.  I would love to be as worked up as every other Celtics fan about the elbow but, to me, it just didn’t seem purposeful.  That said, he throws a ton of elbows and — at some point — you have to wonder how he throws so many goddamn accidental elbows.

Donaghy compared Dwight’s elbows to Kobe’s back in the day, but there was never a question that what Kobe did was intentional.  With Dwight, you can’t tell whether it’s intentional.  That’s the difference.

If you’re looking for referee conspiracy theories, Donaghy says Game Six should favor the Celtics.  A Celtics-Lakers finals would be more beneficial to the league than a Celtics-Magic Game Seven, says Donaghy.