Ed Malloy, Dan Crawford and Jason Phillips were not the reason the Celtics lost Game 1 to the Miami Heat on Monday night. Any reasonable person who watched the 93-79 Miami win would start with the following before arriving at the officiating crew:

Paul Pierce shot 5-for-18.

Brandon Bass shot 4-for-11.

Rajon Rondo played as poorly as one can play when putting up a line of 16-9-7, one of those semi-disengaged Rondo head-scratchers.

Ray Allen shot 1-for-7 in 39 painful-to-watch minutes, and were it not for a woeful lack of depth it's fair to assume he wouldn't even be on the floor. Allen deserves all the credit in the world for trying to play through this, but the very clear reality is that he's a major liability for this team right now.

LeBron James -- who has won five of his last six playoff games vs. the Celtics, probably time to drop any notion that this team is in LeBron's head -- was brilliant, scoring 32 points with 13 rebounds. And Dwyane Wade was almost equally terrific, shooting 8-for-13 to finish with 22 points and seven assists. 

The Celtics scored a combined 44 points in the first, second and fourth quarters. 

This all happened, this is reality. Miami is the better team and played like it last night. When the Celtics needed to step up, they absolutely wilted in the fourth quarter. That's why they lost, it wasn't about the referees. Tommy Heinsohn, Lucky and Donnie Wahlberg could have been your officiating crew last night and this series would still be 1-0, Heat.

But that doesn't change what remains screamingly, embarrassingly and increasingly obvious: NBA referees, for the most part, are thin-skinned, paranoid, tone deaf, incompetent and, remarkably, seemingly free of punishment for their blunders. 

Ed Malloy -- who kicked Paul Pierce out of Game 1 of last year's Celtics-Miami series, a decision that fell somewhere between "moronic" and "staggering overreaction" -- slapped a technical foul on Doc Rivers in the second quarter last night, one that Rivers called "the worst he's ever had." Replays showed Rivers saying, "Come on, Ed," before getting whistled for the T. If T's were handed out for every "come on" from a coach the game would be 16 hours long and each team would shoot 384 free throws. There's no way to spin it, this is a referee making himself bigger than the game, showing a coach not to mess with him on his territory, his turf. Malloy's the sheriff and these are his rules. It's the kind of breathtaking arrogance that, sadly, is nowhere near uncommon from NBA referees, even in a spot as significant as the Eastern Conference finals. If only there was someone in charge of these guys, a commissioner of some kind. The NBA should look into naming one. 

That was one of five technical fouls for the Celtics last night. Rondo pushed Shane Battier in the third quarter (Malloy), Allen argued with Danny Crawford in the first quarter, Garnett received a delay of game technical for tapping the ball out of bounds after a basket (Crawford), and the C's were whistled for an illegal defense in the first quarter.

Tossing out the illegal defense tech, of the four others, I'll concede that maybe -- maybe -- Rondo's was deserved. Jeff Van Gundy -- who was all over the refs Monday night -- thought a warning for both Rondo and Battier was probably the route to go, and I'd agree. But that's picking nits. The other three shouldn't have been called, but Crawford and Malloy won't be reprimanded for that. Instead of a fine or a benching it'll be a look the other way and a spot in the NBA finals. It's how business is done in the World of Stern and that's exactly why the officiating in the NBA has reached -- if not passed -- crisis stage.

Fans don't trust referees. And I'm not talking the usual conspiracy-theory crowd -- the ones who think every single game is fixed so the big cities and biggest stars win each game -- but the sensible folks, the ones that make up the majority of eyeballs on TV sets during these games. And that distrust comes directly from the complete mismanagement of the Tim Donaghy scandal. 

Donaghy bet on NBA games, admitted to calling games unfairly (fixing games, in essence) and was tied into the mafia for millions of dollars and did it all by himself, according to Stern. He's evidently a rogue, a rogue who made 134 calls to fellow referee Scott Foster between October 2006 and April 2007, the period when Donaghy confessed to gambling on games. Whatever it's worth, the great majority of those calls lasted less than two minutes. 

Anyone believe that? Of course not. Stern tried to sweep it under the rug and only made it worse -- to me it's the worst cover-up in the history of American professional sports. Instead of being honest and completely open during the process, Stern made it look like he had something to hide. And that's why we don't trust Ed Malloy and Joey Crawford and Danny Crawford and all the rest. When LeBron James puts his head down, runs over Rondo and gets to the foul line there is increased suspicion as to why the call was made. And that's not on the referees, lousy and inconsistent as they can often be. That's on David Stern, who didn't want the public to know the truth. All he cares about is keeping owners fat and happy and signing TV contracts. Ugly stories involving referees can only get in the way of that, right? So why not sweep it under the rug?

Again, the Celtics didn't lose on Monday because of the referees. Their problems in this series extend far beyond the technical trigger-happy duo of Danny Crawford and Ed Malloy.

But that doesn't mean there won't be a point in this series when an official makes a call that will cost the Celtics a game. We all know that could absolutely happen. There are too may sub-standard refs still working these games to believe otherwise.

And if it does happen, there will be anger. There will be outrage. There will be suspicion. There will be calls for changes and for punishments.

And David Stern will be very happy to tell us about increased international TV ratings and record page views on NBA.com. That's how he does business, and that's why NBA referees cannot be trusted.