After coming up clutch in Game 3, LeBron James silenced his critics again on Tuesday.
James scored 13 of his 25 points in the fourth quarter and nailed two pivotal free throws with four seconds left to lift the Cavaliers over the Pistons, 91-87, in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals and even the series at 2-2.

Cleveland used a key 12-2 fourth-quarter run to grab the lead, before James’ free throws sealed the game.

Daniel Gibson scored a career-high 21 points and Drew Gooden added 19 points and eight rebounds.

Chauncey Billups posted 23 points and nine boards for Detroit, but missed a trey with 44.9 ticks left that would have tied the game.

The Pistons’ Richard Hamilton tallied 19 points and eight rebounds.

Detroit will look to bounce back in Game 5 as it returns home to host Cleveland on Thursday at 8 p.m. ET on TNT.

NBA.com

Charley Rosen / FOXSports.com
Posted: 9 hours ago

The Spurs are in command of the Western Conference Finals after besting the Jazz 91-79 in a wild, slam-bang contest.

That’s a far cry from Utah’s blowout win in Game 3, and Monday’s loss shows why the Jazz are still a far cry from elite.
First of all, it should be noted that Steve Javie, Ken Mauer, and Joe DeRosa had worse games than any of the players. For no discernible reasons, some flops were ignored, some were penalized, and some were rewarded. And because of the routine mayhem permitted to transpire in the middle, most of the players will no doubt be suffering from scratches, bumps and bruises from their elbows to their fingertips. Things got so chaotic that whenever a whistle sounded the players had no idea what the forthcoming call would be.

Here’s an incident that showed exactly how confused the refs really were: The Spurs had the ball when a pass to the wing was clearly deflected out of bounds by Andrei Kirilenko — but Mauer indicated that Bruce Bowen had touched the ball last and awarded possession to Utah. After a quick conference, however, the three refs determined that Bowen had not touched the ball and that it belonged to San Antonio.

OK. Well done.

But one of the refs was wearing a wire, and during their deliberation Mauer said, “Kirilenko deflected the ball, and I don’t know if it went off Bowen or not.”

Really? Then why did he make the bogus call in the first place?

The only positive outcome of the refs’ collective incompetence is that it didn’t particularly favor either team.

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For anyone who watched game 4 of the Jazz vs. Spurs Western Conference Championship game there’s no doubt how the fans feel about the referees, they chanted “Refs Suck” and “Javie Sucks”! I know it’s bias and coming from the fans of the Jazz! But it’s a growing trend around the NBA! A large percentage of the fans are starting to buy into the conspiracy theory, is the NBA the WWE? The league can never truly become the WWE because the players still have to score and there’s no way to fake a made three pointer and the opposing teams is never going to buy into letting the other team win! However it does seem that the NBA is manipulating games. I have to believe that the NBA doesn’t really want to hear the fans chanting that the refs suck on national TV for even the casual fans to hear.

With sites like NBARefsSuck.com rising in popularity the NBA has to have one eye on the unrest of the fans and hopefully a serious attempt to improve not just the game from a marketing stand point but improve the refereeing so that the integrity of the game can return. I believe the change in the rules to favor offensive basketball has truly damaged the game. Then there’s the media who is more than happy to promote offense over defense. This year the media decided that the always considered soft Spurs have been upgraded to the dirtiest team in the league because of one comment by Amare Stoudemire and the media’s rush to create a story just to sell something. Whether it’s true or not is up to the true fans to decide!

Zip

With all due respect to a great game for Williams and Boozer, game 3 of the Western Conference Finals was heavily tainted by the refs.

It was funny to watch ABC’s ‘Freeze Cam’ as they showed Williams ‘helping’ out on Tim Duncan, he very obviously hit Tim Duncans arm both times - no call. Yet the horrible NBA officiating failed to catch it. They’d call Tim for 3 offensive fouls to keep him out of the game, ultimately costing the Spurs the game. Offensive fouls help the officials control the game, while keeping the stat sheets the free-throw attempts are closer.

The Jazz did a great job, as they should, of taking advantage of the horrible officiating.

The series should have been a sweep. I guess the NBA wanted to throw Utah a bone…

“We don’t have anybody fouling out. If I had guys fouling out, I’d know they were at least close enough to touch somebody, I don’t want any nasty basketball, that ‘We got to take somebody out’ kind of stuff. I just want to see us play hard.”

-Jerry Sloan

(Funny how the team & fans 655 miles south of the Jazz can’t seem to understand the idea of hard-fought basketball… I guess it goes to show why, perhaps, they don’t have a championship.)

By Chris Sheridan
ESPN Insider

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. — I’m not going to kill Cleveland Cavaliers coach Mike Brown harder than anybody else in this column — I’ll save that honor for the referees — for biting his tongue after the Eastern Conference finals Game 2 loss, 79-76, to the Detroit Pistons on Thursday, although I think he did his team a disservice by trying to take the high road by refraining from criticizing the officials in the interview room afterward.

“We’re a no-excuse team,” Brown said, a line that was echoed minutes later by LeBron James.

But make no mistake, the Cavs were absolutely livid at the lack of a call when James drove to the basket with eight seconds left and was hacked numerous times by Richard Hamilton, including a rake across his arm as he went for the shot everyone had been waiting three days to see if he would take.

I asked Hamilton in the locker room afterward if he had fouled James on the play, and Hamilton couldn’t stifle a cackle before he gave his answer: “Nah, you know. I just put my hands up.”

And let the record show that he cackled at the end of that answer, too.

Read the rest of the story!

“I’m glad it’s not my money”

-Gregg Popovich, on the Spurs being fined $50,000 for not making his players available to the media.

Get your NBARefsSuck merchandise now while supplies last!

(May 21, 2007) — The rest of the NBA playoffs aren’t likely to set any positive TV ratings records.

When your league is playing basketball in June, the Finals matchup had better be dazzling.

The Detroit Pistons vs. the San Antonio Spurs won’t be.

The two most entertaining teams in the eyes of most NBA fans — the Dallas Mavericks and Phoenix Suns — have been eliminated. At least the Mavs lost fair and square to Golden State. The Spurs might not have needed a big assist from the NBA office to beat the Suns, but they definitely got one and we’ll never know what would’ve happened had both teams been at full strength for their series-turning Game 5.

But before we get a rematch of the 2005 Finals (San Antonio over Detroit in seven games), we have to survive a pair of mismatches in the conference finals.

San Antonio in five games over Utah.

Detroit in six games over Cleveland.

Utah’s best player is Carlos Boozer, probably the most underrated power forward in the NBA. San Antonio’s Tim Duncan probably is the NBA’s all-time best power forward and he has a much better and more experienced supporting cast.

The Spurs on Sunday in Game 1 of their series won 108-100 (it wasn’t that close) at home over the Jazz for the 17th straight time. That streak isn’t likely to end before next season.

Cleveland vs. New Jersey might have been the most difficult playoff series to watch since the shot-clock was introduced. Slow-paced, low-scoring and boring — partly because the defense was decent but mostly because the offenses were horrible. The big difference was LeBron James playing well for the Cavaliers and Vince Carter predictably playing poorly for the Nets.

Cousins Carter and Tracy McGrady were teammates in Toronto for two seasons and some people have wondered how the Raptors would’ve fared had they both stayed. Judging by their disappointing playoff histories, probably not exceedingly well.

Detroit has too much big-play experience and plays too much defense to lose a playoff series to Cleveland. James’ brilliance should help the Cavaliers win once or twice but it isn’t going to happen four times.

Link!

OK I know this isn’t real basketball news but I couldn’t stop laughing!

Heres my favorite!

Link to Laughter!