Results 21 to 30 of 76
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06-10-2009, 01:19 AM #21
Well I am one for building up evidence before I make a claim. The hacking on Howard in game 2 (See how the Magic did when the Lakers were not allowed to do this),reviewing Lewis' shot in game 2, not calling Gasol's goal-tending in game 2, the obvious call were the ball went off Gasol's leg and not Howard's, and the obvious block on Kobe that was called a foul in this game. If you noticed, most of what I pointed out happened in the last few minutes of the games. These previous examples are series changing plays that always seem to go to the Lakers. They have called moving screens on Howard and did not when Gasol did one in this game. This looks a little bias to me.Last edited by drtom2005; 06-10-2009 at 01:23 AM.
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06-10-2009, 01:30 AM #22
And that is the key. Just because it looks like bias does not mean it is. Who do you believed is biased? The NBA? David Stern? The Officials? There is nothing to gain for ANYONE by giving the Lakers the championship.
If the NBA was going to 'rig games' they would not have the Lakers win, and they definitely would not want the Lakers going up 3-0. The NBA makes money if more games are played. If anything, they would want every series to go 7 games.
They also would not want the Lakers to be winning, or the Celtics. The Lakers and Celtics have established, dedicated fan bases. They are not going anywhere. Teams like Milwaukee, Charlote, New Orleans, Orlando, Sacremento, etc would benefit. The NBA throws them into the Finals, pretty soon the whole city is talking about their team.
It just does not make any sense. People only see what they want to see. People want the Lakers to lose - so they will make it appear that the refs are cheaitng if the Lakers come out on top.
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06-10-2009, 01:35 AM #23
Well I it is not bias, it definitely bad officiating. This is the finals. If one or two more plays like the previous ones happen in the final minutes of a game that affect the outcome I will be angry. I do not care if it is on either team. I want the game to be played fairly. By the way, the NBA makes more in merchandise if the Lakers win just to let you know. I am saying it is looking very suspect.
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06-10-2009, 01:47 AM #24
I believe this article perfectly sums up the officiating.
NBA Finals: a game of survival for referees
The way the game has evolved makes it impossible for NBA officials to make all the right calls.
Bill Dwyre
June 2, 2009
Thursday, we embark on another couple of weeks of silliness, aka the NBA Finals. Think of it as the prelude to the parade.
The silliness is not the players, who are all marvelous athletes. Nor is it the competition format, which only follows the lead of most organized sports these days. That means seasons that are way too long, followed by playoffs even longer, leading to the exhaustion of everybody involved except for those benefiting the most -- television, team owners and Madison Avenue ad people.
No, the silliness is the game itself, as it has been allowed to evolve.
Once, we had passing and shooting. Now we have wrestling. The players are bigger, stronger and faster and the coaches talk more about power and muscle then finesse. It is now more rugby scrum than basketball.
The outcomes are a bigger deal because the money is huge. And the media herds right along, mooing at great length and great volume while perpetuating that importance.
All of which is fine, as long as we see things for what they really are, especially when it comes to the poor suckers known as referees. Such as:
* The game as it is played today is impossible to officiate.
* The people with whistles are not bad people, neither are they participants in some great conspiracy to have Team A beat Team B. They are just overmatched by the task at hand.
* Fans who see a call go against their team and immediately assume some official is the next Tim Donaghy -- and call talk shows and write letters to the editor -- need to get a life.
Officiating in the NBA is not a sweet science. It's not even a science. It is survival.
The court's too small, the players are too big and too fast, the rules are too funky, and the pressure to cater to superstars is too severe. There used to be two referees working games, now there are three. They could have 10 and it wouldn't matter.
They have a rule against standing in the lane for more than three seconds. That's a joke.
They have a rule against moving while setting a screen. That's a joke.
They have a rule against taking more than two steps off the dribble before shooting. That's a joke.
What our high school coaches taught us to avoid is now done every time down the floor in the NBA and the TV broadcasters call them "great moves." Referees used to call that "walking."
NBA officials are now calling so many fouls and whistling so many game stoppages that if they called all this other stuff, too, the games would last four hours.
Then there is a relatively new concept made popular in the last few years by the men in front of microphones sitting court-side. It is called the "great non-call." That apparently means that the specific physical assault that took place was not severe enough -- no broken bones protruding or gashes needing stitches, apparently -- to warrant blowing a whistle.
Take, for example, last year's incident when Derek Fisher of the Lakers draped several portions of his body over Brent Berry of the San Antonio Spurs, who was taking a last-second shot. No whistle blew, and afterward, the consensus seemed to be that it was a great non-call. That must have been because Barry didn't have to be put into traction.
Just for a little salt and pepper, the NBA, in its infinite wisdom, has come up with a system where certain fouls are reviewed the next day and some that have been called flagrant are now not. If we wait long enough, one of those "great non-calls" will turn up the next day as a Flagrant II, whatever that means.
They also have rules now about how many technical fouls a player can have before he is suspended for a game. But they make sure that, in their review process and reversals the next day, that is not going to happen, especially to any of their superstars.
All of that is utter nonsense, but no more than the league's attempt a few years ago to stop all the whining to referees after calls. In one recent preseason, referees were encouraged to slap technical fouls on any players arguing a call, throwing up their hands in complaint or even rolling their eyes in disgust. The league said it was tired of players showing up officials.
That obviously went well.
What we have now is a league of players who can go right from the NBA into lobbying jobs in Washington or into playing dramatic leads in Broadway plays. Never have so many whined so much. A fair guess would be that Kobe Bryant has had more conversations lately with referees than with his wife.
Apparently, the NBA no longer views a 6-foot-8 player standing over a 5-10 referee, fists clenched, neck veins bulging, as an attempt to show up the referee.
Then there are the coaches, who apparently budget at the beginning of the year for their inevitable league fines for criticizing officials. Those usually start with the coach standing at a podium after the game, statistics sheet in hand, saying something like: "Well, I see we shot 15 free throws tonight and they shot 25 . . . "
The IRS ought to make those fines deductible, under a category of "necessary expenditure for psyche jobs."
So, each night, into this cesspool of thinly veiled athletic competition step three people who are equipped with whistles, determined to do their best under impossible circumstances and are well paid for carrying out these charades.
Don't get mad at them. Pray for them.
It has nothing to do with anything except the bias that each and every one of us carries around.
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06-10-2009, 01:54 AM #25
Pressure to cater to the superstars. Who are the refs going to cater to more Kobe or Dwight? Clear example. If a few more of these bad plays happen in the final minutes, it doesn't look good? By the way, where was the non-call on Dwight with Kobe? It looks like to me the close and even some non-close calls go the Lakers way at the end. Please be balanced at least if you are going to say it is just the officials. I want to see a bad call on the Lakers in final minutes that give the Magic the win. Would you say the same thing then?
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06-10-2009, 01:57 AM #26
Yes, I would. I am not a Lakers fan. I am a Bulls fan. Pressure to cater to the superstars, wouldn't the NBA have wanted Lebron and Kobe?
Of course they did, but they do not decide who wins games and neither do the officials. The players do and that is why Orlando is in the finals. Oh, let me guess though. The NBA did not care about Orlando beating the Cavaliers, but now they will make sure Orland does not beat the Lakers? Or is Dwight just catered to more than Lebron?
The refs have nothing to do with it, I am sorry, but you are clearly biased.
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06-10-2009, 02:06 AM #27
I am not biased. If you noticed, I am not even talking about game one. The Lakers out played the Magic in Game 1. Game 2 was back and forth. The Lakers got the call to take it to OT and win. Magic's fault for not winning OT. Game 3 Kobe and Gasol get some magical calls that made it closer than it should have been in the closing minutes.
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06-10-2009, 02:15 AM #28
Just to let you, I have spoken about this with Michael Jordan also. He got some great calls in his Finals career that affected outcomes. The biggest one is his final Bulls shot against the Jazz. He pushed Russell to make that shot.
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06-10-2009, 02:18 AM #29
what a joke...there is always somebody barking about the refs...get over it, its not perfect, its not a conspiracy its just something you made up in that head of yours
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06-10-2009, 02:23 AM #30
Uh no I didn't like the Mavs-Heat series either. Anytime Dwayne Wade drove, he got the call. I do not like officiating deciding the game. I was not going to bring up the goal-tending call against Gasol until I saw this game. The officials seem to be happy to let the Lakers catch up with their whistles, but not the Magic. Those plays that I am pointing out are obvious not interpetation.Last edited by drtom2005; 06-10-2009 at 02:25 AM.
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Originally Posted by cj3113 
