I can appreciate that the NBA is trying to clean up it’s act, I also think it’s pathetic that the NBA has suspended 3 players in the Spurs - Suns matchup. Let’s face it, this is the NBA Finals.

Diaw & Sto’dirty’mire are a bigger loss for one game than Horry is for two. The Suns will be at home without two of their best players.

Consistency…

How is a hip-check, which happens all of the time, not quite with such a flop on the receiving end, and/or leaving the bench to check on your teammate, worse than say, elbowing a player in the head knocking him down in a dead-ball situation. Say for instance the blow Fisher received from Baron Davis? No ejections there?

I’m convinced that the NBA would be 100% better off if instead of looking for the ‘most experienced refs’ looked for refs that were a little more consistent. If every ref called the game the same way every time. It would be a better show! The fans would know the fouls, the teams would know the fouls, and there would be peace in the world.

I just had to part with one comment. If Amare was simply ‘checking in’ on the dead ball situation, because the coach ‘told him to’. Why were the coaches trying desperately to hold him back?

Okay, who wins?

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Fan lash out at the NBA!

Well it seems that the NBA has finally gone and done it. They have manipulated games for years and it is beginning take a toll on the fans. Blog’s across the country are on fire with posters who agree and disagree with the NBA latest ruling to suspend Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw. Is it possible that this could be a positive for the NBA? No, but it sure draws attention to NBARefsSuck.com!

The controversy started with Amare going public with complaints that Bruce Bowen is a dirty player and intentionally tried to injure him. Let me state for the record that I don’t believe Bowen is dirty, he does play at a level of intensity that is always going to rub offensive player the wrong way! Next comes the Bowen knee to Steve Nash’s, how do you say it nicely, twig and berries.

Now there were plenty of fouls the Suns committed against the Spurs that could have been deemed dirty and more likely to cause injury. But the Spurs, as they have in the past, choose to keep their mouths shut and decided not give the opposing team material for the chalkboard. A sure sign of a dirty team!

Maybe you can tell that I take issue with the media not bothering to tell the truth. The national media has been calling the Spurs, Tim Duncan and David Robinson soft for years! Now, all of a sudden, when there is a story to sell. They are more than happy to jump on the bandwagon and reap the rewards of the “Spurs are Dirty” train. I call bullshit! Is there not one national media writer who has the, how do I say it, berries to call this what it is! BULLSHIT!

Back to how we got to the fans lashing out at the NBA. Game 4(four) in San Antonio and the Suns are in a must win game. Spurs have had a strangle hold on the game for 3 quarters and half way through the forth quarter the refs decide it’s time to even up the game and let the players decide the game. No calls, phantom calls and bad calls slow the Spurs and give the Suns the momentum. Suns regain the lead and everyone is amazed when the Spurs take out their frustration on Steve Nash, Robert Horry sending Nash into the scoring table with a hip-check the rivals the NHL. Sure it’s wrong and Robert Horry is most probably going to end his amazing career with an ugly mark he doesn’t really deserve and nickname “Big Shot Bob” with more than one meaning. Amare and Diaw charge of bench, never really getting involved in the altercation on the floor. But the NBA rules clearly states that if you leave the bench area during an altercation that player will receive a one game suspension and a $35,000 fine.

Horry suspended for 2 games, Amare and Diaw are suspended for one game each. Now the self anointed most exciting team in the league has to play without two of their starters because they over reacted to Steve Nash’s over acting! That’s right I said it, Steve Nash flopped two of his own players out of game 5 of the best series in years. The Spurs lose a 12 minute clutch player for game 5 and 6. By my estimation the Suns shot themselves in the foot because the NBA manipulates games for entertainment value and the sponsors who buy commercials at he end of games!

Oh yeah by the way! The real most exciting offensive team, the media princess Dallas Mavs already got booted in the first round by a much tougher 8th seed.

NBA Refs Suck this we already know. They have been making bad calls all year. But bad calls aren’t the real problem, I have always said that the refs are going to miss calls, they are human. But manipulating the game to make it close is a complete outrage as far as I’m concerned. The Suns fans are blaming the Spurs, Bruce Bowen, Robert Horry and even Tim Duncan when the probably should be pointing the (middle) finger at the NBA, NBA REFS and the media.

Zip

SAN ANTONIO – Down by eight points entering the fourth quarter of Game 4 on Monday, the Phoenix Suns faced a defining moment in their season, if not their legacy. Would they be able to overcome their reputation as a shoot-first, defend-later, style-over-substance team? Or would they dig deep, make defensive stops, overcome a rowdy crowd and beat a San Antonio Spurs team that was controlling the action with its trademark dominating defense?

Phoenix answered the question by putting together a stirring comeback to win 104-98 and even the series at 2-2. The Suns did it with gritty defense, great rebounding and a late run fueled by Steve Nash and Amare Stoudemire. It was the type of game Phoenix hasn’t been able to win in the past – particularly against the Spurs – and just may have been the breakthrough the team needed in its quest to win the franchise’s first NBA title.

But – and it’s a big but – Phoenix may be facing suspensions to both Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw for Game 5 on Wednesday.

Both players left the bench late in the game following Robert Horry’s flagrant foul of Steve Nash. Under the letter of the law, each player would be automatically suspended for Game 5. In fact, the precedent that has been set by the league is that there are no exceptions to the rule. Leave the bench area and you’re automatically suspended. (See Patrick Ewing, Knicks vs. Heat, 1997.) Never mind that Horry instigated the events with a dirty, thuggish takedown of Nash. Rules are rules, according to the NBA.

However, if the league decides to suspend Diaw and Stoudemire, it may have to suspend Tim Duncan and Bruce Bowen as well.

In a play that went entirely unnoticed until well after the game was over, both Duncan and Bowen actually left San Antonio’s bench early in the second quarter after Francisco Elson and James Jones were entangled. Replays clearly show Duncan walking several steps onto the court as Elson and Jones appeared to be ready to get into it. Bowen then followed Duncan onto the floor, grabbed him and led him back to the bench. If the league does indeed follow the letter of the law, both Spurs players would also be suspended for Game 5.

Stu Jackson will have a busy Tuesday trying to sort everything out. The right thing to do would be to reprimand the players who left the bench area with a fine but not suspended them. The series should be decided by the teams and the players, not by an inflexible rule. The NBA needs to show some guts, announce that no suspensions will be made and have the Spurs and Suns continue what is turning into a fantastic series.

But I’m not sure if I see it happening.

In the past, Jackson and David Stern have held firm on the rule, punishing players for merely walking onto the floor a couple of steps away from the bench. There has been no flexibility. But would the league really feel like it was doing the right thing by suspending all of those players for basically doing nothing? I understand the reason for the rule – to avoid dangerous, bench-clearing brawls – but in both of the events in Game 4, no fights were involved. There were only altercations that never amounted to anything.

Jackson and Stern should take into account that not everything is black and white. They should be subjective in their ruling on this one, but again, they haven’t been before.

The late-game scene took away from a fantastic Suns comeback. After playing Duncan straight up for most of the series, Phoenix threw several double teams at him that kept Duncan off balance. As a result, the Suns were able to make key stops down the stretch. At the other end, Nash overcame eight turnovers by making huge plays with the game on the line, continually finding Stoudemire in the lane for easy hoops.

Now the Suns head back to Phoenix with home-court advantage in hand, as they try to break through the mental barrier that exists for every team that has yet to win a title. To be a champion, you have to believe deep down that you’re going to win, regardless of the situation. Monday’s game took Phoenix one step closer to gaining that belief. But now the Suns – and the Spurs – will have to wait on the league’s decisions regarding the possible suspensions.

The only player who deserves a suspension for Game 5 is Horry. As for Diaw, Stoudemire, Duncan and Bowen? We’ll see.

Let’s hope the league does the right thing and lets them all play. The basketball world deserves it.

Link

May 15, 2007 1:00 AM

I really hate people complaining about the referees. It’s just so tiresome. And on some level — I may be crazy with this — I feel it is the job of fans to think like champions. Be mentally tough. Play through adversity. Think like a winner, not a whiner.

But this game was something. I was rooting for Phoenix — in the name of a tied series and exciting play deep into the playoffs — and through Phoenix’s comeback I was at first pleasantly surprised as a handful of 50/50 calls went the Suns’ way. But it just kept going. San Antonio couldn’t catch a break. Nash drew a charge on Duncan when he was well inside the no-charge line (UPDATE: I’m most likely wrong about this one, I need to watch the video again, but if indeed Duncan caught the ball inside the line, Nash can draw the foul inside the line), Raja Bell’s flop drew paydirt … By the time Leandro Barbosa barreled into Tony Parker and Parker got called for the foul, I started to feel sort of cheap.

I wanted Phoenix to make the big comeback, but not like that.

I hate to fuel the whiners and conspiracy theorists out there. And it’s premature to say this was really called the Suns’ way. It felt like that from my seat, watching it once in real time.

I would love for an intelligent, non-partial person with a good DVR to break down all the questionable calls and give us a report. From watching it in real time, I feel the referees were a big part of this victory. I’d love to proven wrong.

Of course, plenty more happened. There were great plays by both teams (especially Steve Nash’s left-handed behind-the-back bounce pass in the lane). There may be suspensions. We’ll talk it all out in the days to come.

UPDATE: Adam Hoff at WhatIfSports, who admits he has never been a San Antonio fan at all, and recently examined the calls in Game 2 in this series and found that San Antonio was getting the benefit of the doubt, stayed up late examining every possession of the fourth quarter of Game 4.

San Antonio started the quarter up eight, so it’s a meaningful section of the game. You should read Hoff’s description of every play. He found that of all the foul calls that might have been considered “bad” in the fourth quarter, the the Suns were the beneficiaries of five, and the Spurs were the beneficiaries of none. By his estimation adding in no-calls and violations makes the disparity even greater. Here’s Hoff’s conclusion:

In real time it definitely seemed that Phoenix was getting the majority of the close and/or dubious calls and no-calls and that bore itself out in the “research.” There were a lot of reasons the Suns came back to win (Amare bouncing back, Nash being a straight pimp, and Brent Barry and Michael Finley taking a couple of bad fadeaways), but there is no denying that the calls were a HUGE factor. And beyond the +5 for Phoenix, there were probably a half dozen other calls that were really close and/or not typically called in the fourth quarter of a playoff game (or even during the first quarter of an exhibition game). So the Spurs definitely wore it from the zebras. It felt like an alternate universe, to be honest. And in San Antonio! What a strange night.

Read the article and read the blog

Once again it appears to me that the NBA has manipulated a game at the end to make it close.

Now we have to wait and see if suspensions follow the game 4 scuffle at the end of the fourth quarter. The replay clearly shows Amare and Diaw leave the bench when Robert Horry hip checked Nash into the scores tables. Was it a hard foul? Yes! Was it any harder that the fouls that the Suns had been dishing out all game to Tony Parker? NO! What I really enjoyed was watch the horrible acting job by Nash as he flails his arms over his head to make sure he got he appropriate amount of drama from the referees!

I’m willing to bet that the NBA will not suspend any Suns players because it will ensure a Spurs victory in Phoenix even if Horry is also suspended. The NBA wants and needs the drama this series offers. The Eastern Conference already has the Pistons story line. And don’t forget the King James will make it to the Conference finals for the first time.

All great stories that the NBA can use to promote itself.

Not the same old boring league anymore is it (with a little help for our NBA Refs!

NBARefsSuck

PHOENIX (AP) — With blood spewing from a cut on his nose, Steve Nash could only watch from the bench while the San Antonio Spurs put away Game 1 of the Western Conference semifinals.

“There was nothing I could do,” he said. “It was obviously frustrating, but it was really out of my hands.”

Tim Duncan had 33 points and 16 rebounds — eight offensive — and Tony Parker added 32 points to lead the Spurs to a rugged 111-106 victory Sunday over Nash’s Phoenix Suns.

Nash scored 31 but missed a crucial 45 seconds in the final minute because of the bloody cut on his nose, the result of a head-on collision with Parker with 2:53 to play. The cut required six stitches after the game.

“You only see things like that in a boxing match,” the Spurs’ Robert Horry said, “where a guy cuts his nose and it won’t stop bleeding. You feel bad for the guy because you want to have the best team out there at the end of the game, and he wasn’t out there.”

Michael Finley added 19 points for San Antonio.

Amare Stoudemire had 20 points and 18 rebounds but was just 6-of-19 shooting. Leandro Barbosa scored 18 points for the Suns. Shawn Marion, after a slow start, scored 16, 11 in the final quarter.

The score was a bit high for Duncan’s liking.

“We’d rather play in the 90s, we’d rather play in the 80s,” he said. “That’s our type of game, but we’ve got a lot of guys who are shooting the ball really well. We’ve been moving the ball really well, and the points are going up on the board.”

Game 2 is Tuesday night in Phoenix.

Read the whole article here!

After the game, D’Antoni was still grumbling about two calls — the inbounds foul on Barbosa and one on Stoudemire late in the second quarter.

“There were some calls that just changed the complexion of the game,” he said. “Now right, wrong, I’m not here to judge that, and I’m sure they had all the best intentions in the world. It’s just we didn’t get that break and they changed the complexion of the game.”

But he said the Spurs deserve credit for pulling it out.

“These guys are good,” D’Antoni said. “It’s almost like a heavyweight champion, you’ve got to knock them out. We didn’t do it.”

His admiration was obvious.

Still, the more Avery Johnson raved about Baron Davis, the more you wondered if his comments were meant as a rebuke of his star.

“I mean, how special was he?” Johnson asked. “You’re talking about a guy who refuses to lose. You get a player like that who refuses to lose and has a big heart … he has a lot of heart and strong willpower. Really strong willpower. I had that sort of willpower, but I just wasn’t that good.”

Johnson identifies with Davis, the point guard who willed Golden State to one of the biggest upsets in NBA history.

He does not identify with the Dirk Nowitzki he witnessed in these playoffs.

The purpose here is not to drive a wedge between the two or manufacture a dysfunctional dynamic. Johnson and Nowitzki are professionals and quality individuals. They will always treat each other with respect.

But the two are as different as Cajun fire and German ice. Nowitzki’s response to the Warriors challenge was so passive, so foreign to how Johnson approaches these moments, it’s unrealistic to think there won’t be fallout.

What did Johnson say when he called out his forward before Game 5? Johnson chided him for becoming discouraged too easily. He reminded Nowitzki that he was a star, not a role player.

The Mavericks coach told the media that while he wasn’t as talented as some during his playing days, he still did all he could to impose his will on the game. Johnson didn’t accept defeat or what defenses did to him.

Nowitzki accepted what the Warriors did to him. Golden State wanted him to become a passer, and he did. Golden State wanted him to give up the ball at the first sign of a double-team, and he was only too willing to comply.

Warriors coach Don Nelson not only reduced Nowitzki’s impact on the series, he chipped away at the forward’s confidence.

Johnson is all about confidence. How difficult do you think it is for him to accept a team that won 67 games during the regular season and a player who made a strong MVP push losing their confi- dence at the first sign of trouble?

What bothered Johnson most in the moments after Thursday’s elimination is that his team lacked confidence.

“We just got rattled,” said Johnson, who was careful not to criticize Nowitzki. “And that’s not good.”

Read the whole Article!

NEW YORK — An academic study of NBA officiating found that white referees called fouls at a greater rate against black players than against white players, The New York Times reported on its Web site Tuesday night.

The study by a University of Pennsylvania assistant professor and Cornell graduate student also found that black officials called fouls more frequently against white players than black, but noted that that tendency was not as pronounced.

Justin Wolfers, an assistant professor of business and public policy at Penn’s Wharton School, and Joseph Price, a Cornell graduate student in economics, said the difference in calls “is large enough that the probability of a team winning is noticeably affected by the racial composition of the refereeing crew.”

The study, conducted over a 13-season span through 2004, found that the racial makeup of a three-man officiating crew affected calls by up to 4½ percent.

Read Full Article

Can anyone believe the Mavs look so bad?

I for one always thought the NBA, the Refs and the Media were treating them like princesses. Now it all comes home to roost, they say adversity builds character and the Mavs have tip toed to the best record in the league without ever getting challenged! Now they face their first challenge of the year and they appear to be crumbling like a sugar cookie.

I said it weeks ago that the Mavs are one injury or big lose from falling apart and it looks like it’s coming true!

I’ll go ahead and make my prediction right now. Mavs lose this series for one of the biggest upsets in NBA history. Avery shows his true colors as a tyrant and loses the teams trust. Cuban blames the NBA and sells the team.

Zip

Big shocks or upsets so far in the playoffs?

Not really…

The refs at this point are 5-1-1, and at this point the Dallas game looks like it may make it 6-1-1.

Only upset, Rockets over the Jazz.

Against the spread that is.

The combined records, for the home team against the spread, of the refs officiating the games are as follows:

Spurs vs. Nuggets: 86 - 98. Nuggets beat the spread (1-0 Refs)
Cavs vs. Wizards: 95 - 81. Cavs beat the spread (2-0 Refs)
Suns vs. Lakers: 87 - 100. Lakers beat the spread (3-0 Refs)
Toronto vs. Nets: 92 - 102. Nets beat the spread (4-0 Refs)
Miami vs. Chicago: 93-106. Push on the spread (4-0-1 Refs)
Detroit vs. Orlando: 87-107. Orlando beats the spread (5-0-1 Refs)
Jazz vs. Rockets: 108-85. Rockets beat the spread (5-1-1 Refs)

At the writing of this article Golden State is beating the spread by 14.5 pts, which would make the results (6-1-1 against the spread).

So you see, simply knowing which refs were calling the games, someone could have parlayed some serious cash.

Why was the All-Star game in Vegas again? Which team plays there?

Go Maloofs!