It wouldn’t be a real game in this series if somebody wasn’t complaining about the officiating. Well, if the losers didn’t complain, anyway.

Phil Jackson went after the refs following the Lakers’ defeat in Game 4, saying his players couldn’t get used to officials that called certain fouls early but didn’t call the same fouls late.

Phil was fined $25,000 for that by the NBA.

Tonight, it was Nuggets coach George Karl who was going off. He may expect to have his wallet lightened a bit, too.

Said Karl: “I thought they got the benefit of the whistle. But it just seems like … very frustrating for me to sit here and have to worry about every … like it’s the gamesmanship in the press conference on refereeing. I just wish it wasn’t. That’s not a part of coaching for me.

“I mean, (Carmelo Anthony) got beat up tonight. … Tonight, they defended better. At least from the standpoint of the scoreboard. The stat sheet says they defended it better. They blocked more shots We didn’t get as many paint points. But I’m not sure that’s the case.”

Asked a followup question on officiating, Karl did exactly what he said he wouldn’t do — go after the officiating even more.

“I’m not going to get fined,” he said, and then headed directly for a fine. “I’m not going into the game of … Phil is so much better at it than I am, so much more philosophical about the whistle and how it changed.

“It was a very difficult whistle to play, play the game. No question about that. Every player in my locker room is frustrated, from guards to big guys. Look at the stat sheet. Gasol goes after at leas 20 jump shots, 20 shots to the rim and gets one foul.  Our big guys have 16 (fouls). I don’t know. Nene has six fouls, three or four of them don’t exist.

“And it’s frustrating where you take one of your best big guys off the court for that many minutes.  But then again, it just seems like, I think (TNT color commentator) Stan Van Gundy said it right: In the postgame we’re lobbying for the league to help us with the refereeing. And this is too good of a series. It’s too good of teams competing that we’re sitting here just confused by the whistle.”

(And yes, if you’ve noticed that neither coach is particularly articulate, you’ve been paying attention. Neither one of these guys seems to have the ability to speak in complete sentences. It’s embarrassing.)

Denver was called for 30 fouls, the Lakers 22.  Denver shot 30 free throws, the Lakers 35.

In the series, the Nuggets actually have been to the line more often, but it’s not a lopsided stat: Denver 182, the Lakers 174. Karl complained about Anthony getting “beaten up,” but Kobe Bryant has been pummeled at least as hard, if not harder.

However bad the officials may be on any given call, it looks like it evens out fairly well, at least over the course of five games.

Bottom line, the Lakers are up 3-2 with two chances to get to the NBA Finals.