Yes there was a stretch of questionable calls for the Suns early in the 3rd. The rest of game, including the final moments (including the blown goaltending by Duncan on Amare's shot, no foul when Parker knocked Johnson down), were evenly called. I am glad they stopped calling charges when Horry-Parker-Manu step under their opponents when the other guy is the the air. Those are not charges even if the feet are outside the circle, you have to get their before the guy leaves his feet. They are no calls or blocks, the refs are finally getting this. I would have thought Will new better than to make his claim, I think he got caught in the moment. If you want a partisian angle, no one gets away with more walks than the Spurs. They let their bigs (Duncan included) catch the ball and take steps before dribbling. Manu and Parker routinely get extra steps. Nash takes the extra step and they actually called it once in the 2nd half
The Suns are a really good team..their players are good. But they don't play defense! Officiating was just wow...just horrible. It wasn't favoring either side..not like Rockets/Mavs.
The Suns need to do 2 things to compete for titles. Yes, getting their long athletes to play team D is one. Second is finding a way for Marion's nuts not to shrink into peas when the stakes rise.
I got one, then after a day, two more emails through SI from fans telling me that they thought Tim Duncan was setting moving screens in Games 3 and 4. All three prefaced their emails by saying, "I have no rooting interest, and respect Tim Duncan quite a bit, but ..."
Amare had a great game tonight. He took command of the paint (offensively and defensivly). He had some sick blocks, all on the flopper himself (Gino).
Two things really jump out at me in this series. Both contrast how Yao is officiated differently from Duncan and Amare. 1. Duncan sets moving screens. I don't really have a problem with it. Most big men do it consistently. I do have a problem with Yao getting called for it just because of some complainers. 2. Amare really gets to throw the smaller players around out there. I guess you can chalk it up to 'agression' or whatever, but Yao just is never allowed to do anything close to what Amare can get away with. Can you imagine Yao running over Parker at the end of game 4 and not getting called for a charge? Amare also got away with tons of contact with loose balls that I'm sure would have been called against Yao just because he is 8" taller. Regarding the botched goaltend: they could call so many goaltends throughout the course of a highly contested game where players touch the rim, or put their hand in the net. Duncan touching the rim had no effect on the shot, so I think it's a good no call. On Johnson's 3, he was hit slightly on the arm after the shot was away. He tried to sell a foul by falling down. That's a good no call to me. If the Suns played D, they would realize that contesting 3's and even hitting players after the release are all normal, and not called in these games. We do that a ton, especially last year against the lakers. To contrast that play, Dirk got away with clubbing Tmac on the head after he released a 3 with no call.
agreed. i remember once tmac was called for touching a trey shooter after he released the ball in the mavs series. even the comentator was saying "that's not a foul. that's high-five after the shot".
a) f the spurs. what is with all the support on this board for them? i like ginobili and duncan, and i'm even starting to stop hating parker. But SCREW the spurs. hate em. hopefully get swept in the finals by the pistons... i guess the heat would be ok too. b) don't think the officiating was too biased. i do feel like i've seen the league make calls to help detroit and phx get back in the series periodically, but they don't go nuts with it. Yeah I know, anything is too much.. but hey, if the suns didn't win the game, maybe it wasn't too much I do have a real problem with all the flagrant fouls now. Geez, I'm pretty good at falling and making it look bad without hurting myself. I think I could draw 5 flagrants a game out there..
This was a fun piece on ginobili's mad flopping at realgm this morn : http://www.realgm.com/src_goaltending/52/20050601/ginobilis_soccer-style_flops_have_no_place_in_the_
Yao gets called for doing the same stuff Duncan and Stoudemire do, because Yao does it uglier. That is the plain truth about 95 percent of biased officiating in the NBA. The bias isn't against one team or another. It's against ugliness. If you're Michael Jordan and you've got smooth moves and a pretty jump shot and it's fun to watch you shove Bryon Russell out of the way so you can bury the Jazz, the refs won't blow the whistle. They'll think about it, but they'll hold that last little bit of breath because, damn, it's just so pretty to watch the whole sequence. If you're Amare and you play bigger than your size and you finish with amazing jams and layups, they'll bite the whistle when you shove Parker off the court. If you're Duncan and you make everything look smoother than a big man should, they'll bite the whistle when you set a moving screen. If you're Hakeem, and your extra step in the lane lifts you to a beautiful jump hook over a double team, nobody's going to call it. But if you're Yao, and you're slow-footed and downcast and you make every moving screen and every contact in the paint look just a little bit too ugly, they'll let the air out and blow the whistle. It's the aesthetics, man. Make your fouls part of something fun to watch, and it'll take everyone's breath away -- including the officials.
Tom TOlbert is an idiot. Yeah a lot of times during this series Amare or someone else drove to basket a lot of contact with DUncan and others..and no foul call. A lot of the times Yao stands there and gets called for a foul.
