Over at Powerline, Paul Mirengoff asks, “Who was that cranky old man and why did he ice Kevin Durant?” That “cranky old man” would be Joey Crawford, the 62-year-old referee who grabbed the ball and ran over to the scorers’ table Tuesday night after Durant hit his first free throw with 27 seconds remaining, closing the margin to one point. The Memphis Grizzlies were leading Durant’s Oklahoma City Thunder 100-99, but Crawford’s move effectively iced the 87 percent free-throw shooting Durant who went on to miss his next shot, costing the Thunder the game.

Mirengoff sees Crawford’s showboating, his “‘look at me’ moment,” as part of a larger trend in sports. “Sporting contests have a flow and rhythm,” writes Mirengoff. “If the flow and rhythm are disrupted, the games become hard to watch and hard to play.”