Beware the dangers of Twitter after a playoff loss. Conspiracy theories abound. There is nary room for nuance, balance and fairness.



If there was one thing I learned after the Celtics’ 123-116 Game 3 loss to the Bucks on Friday as I looked through my Twitter mentions — besides that I’m an idiot — it’s that large swaths of Celtics fans genuinely believe the refs are rigging the game. They are not some sort of anomaly. Infuriation with officials has been catalyzed by the players and their teams, emanating to fans all over the league lately.



The theories that officials are rigging games is based mostly on fan rage that calls didn’t go their way, even though the players are predominantly responsible for the calls they get. Still, there can be legitimate questions about the quality of calls. The public’s sense of how officiating went in a game is overwhelmingly anecdotal and skewed, so the solution is to go back and watch every...