The Boston Celtics took down the LA Lakers in overtime on Saturday night, but not before a controversial call at the end of regulation that sent LeBron James over the edge, causing a temper tantrum on the court that brought him to his knees.

Eric Lewis was the official on call for this game in Boston. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Lewis, he’s been in the league for 18 seasons, officiating over 1,000 games and six Finals games in his career.

There are suggestions from the Lakers and 76ers camps that the Celtics have a 36-2 record in games Lewis has officiated since 2020. 

After the game, via the NBA’s Pool Report covering the officials and other aspects of the game in those regards, Lewis said they didn’t see Tatum’s foul on LeBron at the time.

“There was contact. At the time, during the game, we did not see a foul. The crew missed the play.”

Shortly after the game, David McMenamin of ESPN reported that the NBA already determined that the officials got the call wrong, which forced overtime by not granting LeBron a shooting foul.

The NBA has already determined in its postgame review that the officials got the call wrong on the Lakers’ last possession of the 4th Q and a Jayson Tatum should have been called for a shooting foul on LeBron James, league sources told ESPN.

— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) January 29, 2023

At the end of the day, this proved that Tatum is in the upper echelon of players around the league that the officials look at as a player that will have calls go their way.

Sometimes it’ll work in favor of one team and the adverse effect is that it doesn’t work for the other team. The Celtics were the team it worked for on Saturday night, despite LeBron being on the other end of it.

Follow us on Twitter @CelticsFiles