The Los Angeles Lakers were finally defeated tonight, ending their 8-game winning streak. But it took the reigning champions, the Boston Celtics, to bring down Luka Doncic and company. However, some moments during tonight’s game led to a lot of raised eyebrows within the Lakers’ fanbase. Moments that have led to them labeling the Celtics as “one of the dirtiest teams in the NBA.

The Celtics played an insanely physical game tonight if you can call it that. And the officials seemed to be turning a blind eye to most instances. But one of the scariest moments came during an Al Horford dunk. Al hung onto the ring after scoring and proceeded to knee Luka Doncic square in the face.

This happened right in front of the official! This move by Al in the first quarter was akin to something you’d see in a WWE ring. Luka immediately went down, grabbing his nose and face in extreme agony. It looked painful to us, too, Luka!

Don’t think this incident was a one-and-done, though. Luka was constantly targeted by the Celtics. Jaylen Brown hit Doncic with an elbow in the second quarter; this time, the refs called it. Brown even received a technical foul for yelling at the officials. Jaylen threw a tantrum as he walked back to the bench and slammed his towel on the ground in rage.

But guess what happened after the Celtics challenged the call? Of course, Boston won the challenge, overturning the original foul on Doncic. This seemed to be the trend for the entire game, and fans were not happy about it in the slightest. Here are some of the best ones:

Fans left annoyed by the horrendous officiating faced by Luka Doncic and the Lakers during the Celtics game

Most fans were really critical of the officiating tonight. They hailed the NBA as one of the worst officiated leagues in the world. “@NBAOfficial‘s are the worst refs in any professional sports league by far. They don’t even enforce the rulebook. This video can be exhibit A,” wrote one fan referencing the video of Luka being elbowed by Brown.

Another member of the community was less calm about making the same point. “CALL THE F**N FOUL JAYLEN BROWN HACKING LUKA 94 FEET WHERE YALL HIRE THESE REFS @NBA,” they said. The officials should not have overturned Jaylen Brown’s original foul. The contact was clearly excessive and unnecessary. The replays confirmed this. However, the refs just ignored it. Something needs to change ASAP when it comes to officiating in the NBA.

But others felt that both the officials and the Celtics were to blame for the game tonight. “Celtics home refs gotta be the nastiest shit to play against and you rarely hear about it,” said one netizen on X. Another wrote, “The Celtics are one of the dirtiest teams in the NBA and the refs let them get away with it.” The refs overlooked so many obvious fouls on Doncic. Frankly, there’s really no arguing against this point.

Nevertheless, many fans seemed to rationalize this loss, believing that the Lakers had the deck stacked against them from the get-go. “scheduled loss ngl. This was their Game 7, been resting for it for days and Adam Silver even sent his 2 handpicked refs to secure the win,” wrote an X user. While we wouldn’t go as far as saying that Adam Silver and the Celtics conspired against the Lakers, we can agree that this game was always going to be tough for the Lakers.

The Celtics had rested their stars against the Sixers in anticipation of this game. Whereas Luka and LeBron both entered this game with injuries. So, it was never going to be easy to get the dub for the Purple and Gold. But we’re sure the shoddy officiating didn’t help.

All in all, this outing must have been disappointing for Luka Doncic. He entered the game with an injury and had to put up with a ton of unnecessary contact and, frankly, violence at the hands of the Celtics. This game should’ve been his revenge on them for the 2024 NBA Finals. But sadly, the cards didn’t fall into place for Luka Magic tonight. But what did you think of the officiating tonight? Did the Celtics get away with manhandling Doncic? Or is this just the amount of physicality we should expect in a heated rivalry such as this one?