As the Boston Celtics celebrate a long-awaited championship, we shouldn’t let their present victory suppress the disturbing questions that still linger from Finals past. Once again, the issue of the integrity of the NBA is in question. This should not be particularly surprising to anyone who watches much basketball, and especially NBA basketball.

Tim Donaghy, the former referee who has admitted gambling on games — including games in which he was involved — has shaken the league with his accusations of misconduct by NBA officials. Among the charges made is that NBA officials instructed referees to extend playoff series to seven games to boost ticket sales and TV ratings. He cited several examples of the practice, including the infamous 2002 Lakers/Kings series.

Several reviews have been done of the tape of this game, and the consensus is that the refereeing was extremely bad. The question is — was it intentionally bad, or simply three refs having an off night? How can one tell which it is?

You can’t. It is simply a matter of faith.

Commissioner Stern and several current and past NBA referees have dismissed Donaghy’s charges. Even the highly critical Mark Cuban, who has no love for referees, said that he did not believe the charges. Now the Sacramento Kings owners have added their names to the list of those who make the distinction between dishonesty and incompetence. No one connected in any way with the NBA or television can say otherwise.

What is interesting is that while the NBA officials and referees have circled the wagons, Donaghy’s charges seem to have a great deal of traction in NBA fandom. This is not difficult to understand.

I started watching NBA basketball over 50 years ago and I have always felt that there was something amiss in the officiating of games. Were games fixed? Sometimes I thought so, especially when my team lost by three points and the other team took 25 more free throws than my team. This could be no accident.

The problem for the NBA and its credibility stems from any number of factors. First, although basketball is technically a non-contact sport, it has come to resemble mixed martial arts. The NBA game is a collision sport. Watch any game and you will see people pushed down, men in the pivot engaged in hand-to-hand combat, and players bloodied. Too often, no foul will be called.

On the other hand, a few minutes later one player will move past another with no contact being made and a foul will be called.

It is also a well-known fact that the standards for fouls are different depending on the circumstances and classifications of players. Stars are treated differently than ordinary mortals. Home court dictates the balance of calls.

Time changes foul definitions so that in the final minutes of a close game what had been a foul earlier in the game, no longer is a foul. Travelling violations are like lightning. You never know when and where they will strike.

Then there is the matter of the three-second violation, which in fact has turned into the six-second, three-second violation. This is called in a pattern of random chance variation, although often at a critical time to turn the game. Illegal defense is another of the great mysteries of the NBA. It is governed by a rule that no one except perhaps Dr. Jack Ramsey could explain.

Even Hubie Brown seems mystified by it. Yet it is called and it can add a point here or there to one side or the other.

It is also clear that referees can turn the balance of the game by turning a charging foul into a blocking foul, by giving a quick two or three fouls to a key player and putting him out of commission, or by calling fouls and giving quick technical fouls to players they don’t particularly like. We all know that all of these do happen. Maybe not often, but they do happen.

The basic problem with NBA officiating is that everything is in flux. There is no clear definition of a foul. Sometimes a foul is a foul, but sometimes a foul is not a foul. In a game of continuous action and fierce physicality there is no clarity or consistency of officiating.

I am always amazed when a particular referee is described as a great referee. How is this judgment made? One of the legendary referees of the game was Mendy Rudolph. When I went to game I hated to see him come out on the floor. He was the worst referee I have ever seen at that level. In 2007 Mendy Rudolph became the 13th referee to be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. He is considered one of the “greatest officials of all time.” If I were ever asked to name the worst NBA official I ever saw, I would name Mendy Rudolph. He had no peer.

According to the bio-sketch at the Hall of Fame: “The quality of his work became the standard by which NBA referees are still measured today.” That is certainly one thing I would agree with completely. He was a model of inconsistency and showmanship, and I was sure he had it in for any team I ever supported.

And herein lies the problem. Fans see what they want to see, and what they see is inconsistency that too often can be critical to their team. Given this reality, fans can easily conclude that games are tampered with or fixed.

The gambling device of the point spread further exacerbates this feeling. It seems obvious that the right whistle blown or not blown here and there can manipulate the point spread. And it would be nearly impossible to prove such a thing is happening.

This is why when I watch a NBA game I simply ignore the officiating and watch the players. If all fans could be trained to do this, the charges like those made by Tim Donaghy would be ignored. Unfortunately most fans do watch the referees and what they see too often lends credibility to the charges of Donaghy and others. The NBA needs to find a way to deal with this or it could become a hard court version of Raslin’.

The NBA does have a problem. David Stern’s initial cavalier public dismissal of this problem is yet another problem.