THEY SAY that a referee is happiest when he can call a game and get out of the gym without anyone recognizing him.
That never really was the case with Joey Crawford. He often drew attention to himself, whether it was because of the two technical fouls he called on Tim Duncan in 2007 for laughing on the bench, or the time he sprinted from the baseline to the foul line to strip the ball from Kevin Durant just before a foul shot in order to get something straight at the scorer's table. It didn't help matters that it was Game 5 of a 2014 first-round playoff matchup between Oklahoma City and Memphis.