Did the NBA Refs plan backfire?
1 05 2007The Denver Nuggets were at home in the playoffs, what better time to exact revenge on the suspension of Joey Crawfod. But how? Surely they don’t want to draw the wrath of Stern themselves.
Drive him to do something. It’s the playoffs, it’s passion, it’s frustration…
Don’t give him any calls. Surely he’ll say something, and you can throw him out of the game!
Over the course of the year, the Spurs two top scorers (Tim & Tony) shot free throws at a rate of 41.22 % of their FGA.
At one point during the game last night they showed the stats (up to that point in the game). The two have shot only 4 free throw attempts for the 68 shots attempted. Thats a miserable 5.71% They made calls, they blew the whistle on Najera on the floor as we was about to get dunked on buy Duncan - essentially keeping Najera off the poster. Duncan was clearly upset by the poor officiating, he kept his cool, and lead his team to victory.
Yes officials, Tim Duncan is classier and more professional than you. Then again, the guys selling hot-dogs and cold beers in the stands are classier and more professional.
Barkley was making some noise about how Duncan was getting abused and not getting any calls. I had no idea the disparity that was actually going on.
I have always said that refs missing calls isn’t the real problem but controlling or manipulating games to make them close or change the outcome is the problem.
Well let’s just say it’s up to NBA fans to stand up and be counted!
Duncan wasn’t getting legitimate calls.
I recorded DVR’d it on 2 different channels to watch the replays in slow-mo from different angles. While TNT was showing Manu’s incredible layup over and over, the other channel was replaying Tim very obviously getting hit across the arms. (I’m sure TNT wants to keep the Mr. Stern happy.)
It came across to me as ‘the revenge’ game.
You could almost feel Ed Rush baiting Tim into saying something so he could throw him out fo the game.
Tim was smart enough to keep his mouth shut, at one point he turned to Coach Popovich as if to say: “Coach, if you don’t say something, I’m going to.” Popovich quickly ‘popped’ up and berated the refs.
You guys got it 100% right. I could care less if refs missed stuff. Odds are, you’ll miss stuff randomly and it will even out. But manipulation of games and vendettas against players is just sickening. At least in pro-wrestling, the wrestlers know it’s scripted. In the NBA, those guys play their butts off and no matter what they do, it’s the refs who ultimately decide. Pathetic. Every year, I get closer and closer to never buying NBA League Pass again, but the regular season is reffed somewhat better than the playoffs. In the playoffs, the refs get so obvious in their manipulation that it literally makes me sick.
-Chris
Chrusher,
Great to have you back on the site.
Boy did you say a mouthful there. It’s getting harder to overlook the manipulation. In the regular season the players decide the game most of the time even with the manipulation. But in the playoffs the teams are so even that once the referees even up the score it can go either way!
Zip