Before the NBA Final began, the Boston Herald had the audacity to suggest — in its playoff position-by-position comparisons — that the coaching match-up of Doc Rivers v. Phil Jackson was … wait for it …

Even.

Jackson, who has long been slapped with the ‘pick-a-winner’ label, nonetheless has nine titles to his name and has undertaken a pretty impressive coaching effort to get this L.A. Lakers team into the championship series.

Rivers, on the other hand, once worked for ABC.

And so it seems that anyone considering the coaching match-up (Jackson has coached for 17 seasons, Rivers nine; Jackson has nine titles, Rivers none; Jackson is 976-418-.700 liftime, Rivers is 339-328-.508) as even, can’t possibly be competent enough to cover that particular sport for a living.

Now Rivers has taken some heat for his coaching style — although never in the Boston media it would seem — and the closing moments of Tuesday’s Game 3 should be an indication of why that particular match-up is nowhere near even.

Rivers, after temporarily double-teaming, allowed the NBA’s greatest closer to go one-on-one against arguably Boston’s poorest perimeter defender. So there was Kobe Bryant, with one minute to go in the game and the result still in the balance, allowed to go head-to-head with Ray Allen and he promptly proceeded to hit a deep step-back ‘J’ followed by a pump-fake-up-and-under in the lane that essentially sealed things. Allen was barely noticeable.

But what led to that decision? Rivers had double-teamed Bryant in the fourth to get the ball out of the hands of the MVP and it worked marginally and forced the Lakers to get their points elsewhere (Pau Gasol tipped in a Lamar Odom miss after Odom was the generator of the set play out of a time out). However, with about 1:40 to go in the game and the Lakers up two, that double team was extended well out past the top of the key, almost near halfcourt. Kevin Garnett joined Allen in trapping Bryant. The thought here is likely that Garnett brings some length to make passes out of the double team tougher and the double should take away Bryant’s ability to dribble out of the trap.

So what happens? Bryant merely makes a simple pass to Odom at the top of the key — he’s free because of Garnett doubling — a slight penetration towards the hoop draws the remaining Boston defenders and Odom kicks to a waiting Sasha Vujacic who hits a three in the corner that allowed the Lakers to breathe a sigh of relief with 1:36 to go.

The next time down, the Celtics were going one-up on Bryant and No. 24 assumed his usual role of icing a game.

The Celtics still have to feel fine about their situation. They can look at Garnett’s subpar effort, Paul Pierce being invisible and then check the scoreboard and still know, despite all that, they were right there with a chance to win the game. Plus, it’s still 2-1 with, at the very least, two games in Boston possibly as their fall-back.

The Lakers, meanwhile, got one. It’s nothing more than that. Well, that and they’ve succeeded in injecting at least an ounce of life into a series that, with a Boston win on Tuesday, would have been well on its way to being a corpse.

It is almost comical that the NBA has, for once, come out and admitted an err in judgment.

On a critical play in Game 4 of the Western Conference final, Derek Fisher was sent in the air by a Brent Barry pump-fake, causing the Los Angeles Lakers point guard to bump against the left shoulder of the San Antonio Spurs shooter, who stayed on the ground and then, a second later, flung an ill-fated shot towards the hoop as the last seconds ticked off the clock and L.A. bolted out with a 3-1 series lead.

The debate over Fisher’s foul is a joke when you consider the widespread inconsistency that permeates this league and every single game in these playoffs.

James Posey can literally two-hand LeBron James as he drives across the key, with no intent on playing the ball, but Ronny Turiaf is ejected for a hard-foul that wasn’t remotely near some of the hits in these playoffs that would have made NHL players take notice.

This isn’t about one team over the other. It’s about the NBA’s laughable policing of its playoff games. One play you’re calling a defender for a hand check, and the other minute you’re letting a body contact go because it happened in the final five minutes of a game when all the players are scrapping and clawing.

Here’s the reality: If Derek Fisher is lifted in the air and bumps Brent Barry in the first quarter of that game, it’s a foul. But, like it or not, because it was in the final few seconds of a critical game, it was what it was: A final whistle.

The injustice here is not towards the San Antonio Spurs — although they have beef — but rather to the NBA fan in general. I’ve been watching this league for the better part of 20 years and I still found myself watching the highlight a few times questioning whether it was a foul or not.

And do you know why I debated? It had nothing to do with the play itself and everything to do with how the NBA has discredited itself with inconsistency. A hand check in the first quarter is an infraction, but a body foul in traffic is disregarded. The charge/block call — the most debated and challenged foul call in basketball — is rewarded to whomever sells it the best. As long as it’s in the right part of the game for your team.

But here was the NBA a day after Game 4 coming out and saying it — and the officials in charge — was wrong in the call, much like the NFL has been known to do the Monday following a controversial call. Where it becomes a circus, however, is this is the rare time the NBA has made the leap to say someone in its organization was wrong in an on-court decision. But in a sport where there’s potentially a call every 30 seconds, it’s silly to find one call up for debate and put it on display on the same networks that would rather focus on replays of the innocuous 17-foot jump shot than the controversial foul that happened seconds before.

So the NBA decided to make that call its concession. An acceptance that not everything goes the way that its planned. And as such, the Spurs would have been well advised to have someone like Bryant taking the shot for them.

Knowing the NBA, they’d have been more likely to get that call.