Clean Game or Payback? You Be the Judge

Remember Tim Duncan making the comment last week that he hoped that the Spurs would get "a fair shake" from the refs in the playoffs? Well, in the wake of the Spurs' Game 1 loss to the Nuggets, it would seem that the Spurs are going to get less of a fair shake and more of a pimp slap from the refs in the wake of the Joey Crawford incident. Consider:

-The Spurs averaged 24.1 FTA per game during the regular season.
-In Game 1, the Spurs shot only 10 FTs, including only 6 in the first 44 minutes of the contest
-The Spurs lowest number of FTAs during the regular season: 11
-The Spurs' opponents averaged 21.2 PFs during the regular season
-In Game 1, the Nuggets were called for 13 PFs
-In the two team's three regular season games the Spurs had 21,21, and 27 FTA respectively, and the Nuggets were called for 21,19, and 24 PFs respectively.

Now, this could be a one game abberation. That kind of thing happens. The playoffs are more physical than the regular season. Understood. I can't help but think there might just be a little something fishy though, when a team shoots fewer FTs than they did in any of the previous 82 games, in the wake of a high profile confrontation with a ref that might have resulted in that ref working his last NBA game. I'm just saying: beware the brotherhood of the whistle.