Excellent article on NBA referees for Portland / Houston series

Man you backstabbing @#@$! How could you?? For the love of God!!!! I'd like to stick my boot up ur onus.

j/k my bad just a little wired on caffeine

 

Like I've been saying... the refs have been bad but on both sides and in every single first round series they have been bad. People here in the GARM seem to only see one side of it which is understandable. Bias is human nature.

Good article. Loved this quote:

 

Meh. His article makes it seem as if fan outrage in both cities is close to equal. Blazers fans have absolutely no room to complain about officiating in this series. They have not had the game changing calls put on them that the Rockets have..

 

Sorry, I didn't care for the article.

It was way too long for something that can be condensed to (i) the refs do suck, (ii) seem to impact both teams more or less equally, and (iii) don't control the outcome of the games.

All of which might DEFINITELY be true.

But isn't very helpful, and is entirely conjecture.

Want to do an article on refs impacting games? Analyze every minute of each of the 4 games, marking down correct calls, incorrect calls (both, of those made), and obvious whistles missed, and see the results. Or at least find some way to interject analytics into it. Which still won't be perfect. Cause there's no way to determine what might have happened had Dwight not been called for that tech in Game 4. It's not like it happened in the last minute where we could definitively say it REALLY impacted the game, but we also can't ignore the point that it gave the Blazers a free point, albeit just earlier in the game.

But even ignoring that, there should be way to at least have an independent, unbiased observer tally up good calls and bad calls, and see where we are.

I'm admittedly biased... But I'd be SHOCKED if the Rockets end up on the good side of that equation. Why? Because just look at the complaining. You have Blazers fans complaining of a Harden "push-off".. but if you go and look at the play, as much as anything it's Matthews initiating contact first and then Harden maybe, ever so slightly pushing off a then way off balance Matthews. It's not an offensive foul in any way.

Conversely, you have the Rockets, already called for 2 technicals that on no planet make sense, get called for flagrant 1's for hard fouls on someone's arm but not get similar calls when their guys head gets nearly decapitated (Lin play... where, by the way, the Portland fans thought the call sucked... LOL), have balls clearly going off the Blazers being called the wrong way, etc.
How many times has Dwight been called for a travel this series? Did he travel? Absolutely! Guess what, guys on the Blazers travel, too! But apparently none of the bigs... because despite being fed the ball a bazillion times in the post, LMA has yet to switch pivot feet??

But, I am just a biased fan, who hasn't actually done the analysis. If you find an article with the analysis please post it here.

Thanks

 

here we go.....

 

Sigh... Well, have they?

 

I hate the "can't a team just lose anymore"... in the same vein that JVG hates it.

It makes bad officiating more okay... even if it is equally bad for both sides...which I don't believe is the case here anyway.

Yes, a team ABSOLUTELY can just lose. That's beside the point. It's a strawman. The question really is why is officiating so awful? The idea that it's hard is ludicrous. Being a surgeon is hard. Quantum physics is hard. Being an NBA superstar is hard. Being an NBA official is difficult, and hit or miss at times, but shouldn't have the results we are seeing across these games.

 

Ignore the troll

 

Easy to preach calm respect of the officials when you're the beneficiary of a 3-1 lead due to bad calls. I guarantee you this article wouldn't have been posted if those bad calls didn't happen and the series was instead 3-1 in favor of the Rockets. Instead, it would probably be a post about how terrible referees are in the NBA and how it's all their fault.

 

I agree in general that we totally ignore the calls that go our way and happily accept the calls that go against the opposing team (Blazers right now), but I also agree with the several posters who point out that we're certainly getting the short end of the stick.

Also think that in general, a team has to fight through the bad officiating and will a way to win. Doesn't help when we have underperformance in some games...which.. typically and obviously is deserving of losses.

This guy makes it very easy for publishing to ignore the admitted botched calls on Dwight; I think there are plenty more to evaluate as someone else alluded to in this thread. Although both sides are biased, I think the refs are calling it more favorably for the Blazers. At least in the earlier games..

 

Refs have been terrible for both teams, this is because nba refs are just terrible. The problem I have is when they make a call that dictates the outcome of a game, there is a big difference between making bad calls during the course of a game and making one that screws the other team out of a win. The refs have made two calls and a few no calls that impacted the outcome of the game. The nba has come out and admitted mistakes after 2 games. I don't understand why portland fans don't understand this. Teams can just lose a game SURE but when the refs dictate the outcome of a game, teams don't just lose a game they become part of a show. The nba is the least credible league because of this.

 

N/M. Sorry. Misunderstood.

 

You are going on ignore .....

 

I guess this is why the nba had to say sorry to the rockets twice in just four games for **** calls. Yeah, the article sucks.

 

the bigger point is officiating is terrible across the league. too many subjective fouls to call in the rule book.

 

Look, it's not a conspiracy... But it is really unfortunate that 2 of our losses have been followed by the league announcing that a call was wrong. Not just any call though, in both cases the call gave Portland points in games that went to OT.

There is no way to look at that and say the refs haven't cost us 2 games. Not saying they are out to get Houston... Just that they have really blown it for us so far.

 

Amen!

 

Like any business, it only makes sense that the NBA would try to make as much money as possible. That doesn't mean favoring one team, but rather trying to keep games close and making series last a long time.

Look at the number of OT games in this year's playoffs. It's staggering and way more than what you see in the regular season. Teams really are not that equal.

Sure, reffing is hard. But watch what the refs do on the easy calls like moving screens (where they just randomly whistle a big man for a foul even if there is no contact) or intentional fouls (e.g. where they refused to call the Bev intentional foul to stop the fast break). There is just no reason the refs should screw these up, but they seem to call them almost completely arbitrarily. Mistakes on highly contested plays I can understand. But when Asik or Howard sets a screen, and then the refs call a foul because the little guy's defender falls down randomly, that drives me insane.

 

"Bad reffing affects both teams equally" is nothing but a safe generality to end an uncomfortable conversation.

Show me where the NBA has come out and admitted errors twice for two over-time losses for the Blazers. And tell me how thrilled their fans would be if that WAS the case.