Except that he did appear to be out of the restricted area when Lowry made contact. Have a look at the video. You will see his left foot clearly out of the area and if any part of his right foot is in, it is his heel on the line. That was a very difficult call for the ref to make if he was basing it on the guy's right foot on or off the line.
I think a lot of you don't realize just how hard it actually is to be a referee in the NBA. The games are not rigged, the refs don't swallow their whistles in favor of one team or the other, they are human and will make mistakes because the game is so fast and there are so many different things to look for in a single play. I think it is impressive that they are able to get the amount of calls correct that they do. If there is a game where more mistakes are made in one teams favor than the other it is not because the league is out to get you, it's just because that's the way the dice fell for that game. At the end of the season if you go back and look at all the bad calls that went for and against a single team I guarantee they will be close to even. Some of you seem to want to get rid of all of the refs because they are "deplorable", but the NBA has the best officials in the world, if we get rid of them who do you suggest we have replace them? It's just a part of the game we have to learn to accept because as long as we have human beings calling the game it isn't going to get any better.
Sorry, but watching the Spurs broadcast without Bill going apoplectic on every possible slight to the Rockets, I didn't have a problem with the officiating and completely disagreed with the whining about it going on in the game thread. The Dragic call was missed, but I understand why as I missed it too the first time. The Lowry charge was the only one that got me angry. Houston gave that game away without needing any help from the zebras.
Yeah, refs have one of the most thankless jobs in the world. Just imagine; the players are yelling at you, the coaches on both sides are yelling at you. The fans are screaming at you--heckling in this country is a national pastime almost. And then you've got pressure from the other end as well. The head of the refs is making you go through training sessions each offseason on how games are going to be officiated differently. You've got David Stern sitting in his office going, "I don't want that style of basketball to be played on my court anymore." So now you've got officials looking over their shoulder with a mandate from the higher-ups to officiate the game a certain way. Next thing you know your buddy with the Irish ties is on the take again. Bookies and hitmen are on your ass, so now you gotta pay attention to the spread before the game and completely murder your moral conscience at the end of games. And the worst part of it all is that there's a few people the NBA turned into refs for affirmative action reasons who, by every indication in your interactions with them, are legally blind. Hell, they don't even let that guy drive a car! And now you've got them blowing whistles calling fouls from the other side of the court, and you've got to have solidarity with them. All at the end of the day to come home with no thanks, no dignity, and a $250,000 annual paycheck. What a terrible job. Basketball reasons.
I'm not saying it's rigged but if you pay attention to Vegas lines and spreads for each games..and how the game is being called it gets really suspicious. You notice trends and patterns in scores that make those Vegas dudes look like absolute savant geniuses. Refs point shave all the time and they'll call a game tight/loosely depending on the over/under. I've never betted sports though and I dislike gambling, I just pay attention.
That couldn't be further from the truth, the people who make these lines for Vegas are professionals of a degree you'd find building rocket ships and the like. They have decades of experience, they know more about any given 10 teams than Morey knows about the Rockets. The lines are supposed to, and NEED to be as close as possible to the real match. Something not known among most people: Vegas sets their lines so that an equal amount of people will bet on either team to cover the spread. They wanted 100 people to bet on the Rockets +5.5 as well as 100 on the Spurs -5.5. They don't make their $ on setting a line so 75% of the public bets on one side.
Wait, you actually think they make lines hoping that a majority will pick one team over the other? That's a whole new kind of stupid right there.
It doest matter if they went to the line the same amount of times. It matters at what time and the situation. **** the NBA!
http://sportsgambling.about.com/od/sportsgambling101/a/spreadmade.htm http://www.tigerdroppings.com/rant/display.aspx?p=29524489 (read the 3rd comment) http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-40167.html (again, 3rd comment) http://fauowlsnest.com/board/index.php?topic=10381.5;wap2 http://www.sports-betting-insights.com/understanding-sports-betting-odds.html
It would behoove tehglide to gracefully bow out of this portion of the conversation now. I don't like seeing people getting embarrassed.
