He did the rounds on like 4 different NBA podcasts in the last 2 days fellating Westbrook after the comeback and he never sounded happier.
Utah fans are the most toxic fans in the entire league, been that way for a while. Remember that incident with D.Fishers daughter?
Yeah but Derek used his own sick daughter as an excuse to get out of Utah. Which is even more douchey.
I understand that’s what they thought. But I think they misjudged it. Mistakes like that can happen, in real time. Need to wait and see what the L2M report says. I’d be surprised if it says the no call was correct. Edit: Though from this overhead view the no call appears to be more justified:
Yeah that's the view that convinced me there was some validity to the no call and why I don't expect it to show up on the L2M report.
These people act like Harden gets every foul call. He gets a ton, but he also gets his share of no calls. He just puts himself in a situation to force the refs to make a decision WAY more than any other player.
Hell yeah!! Donovan Mitchell is a special player, that guy just straight up gets a basket from the toughest angles and variety of ways. OKC got all the 50/50 calls, especially with Crowder and PG13. That was a good non-call since he definitely jumped sideways into Gobert. They got some continuation that usually Harden doesn't get anymore, so it all evens out if Harden gets the call. Westbrook is right, fans should not be allowed to say whatever they want! Utah is full of racist, crazy redneck type low-IQ'd trailer trash so let's destroy them!
The NBA Case Book actually references this exact type of play. Offensive Player A1 pump fakes a 3-point field goal attempt and Defender B1 clearly jumps/runs to the side of A1 and would not make any contact. Player A1 jumps sideways and initiates contact with Defender B1. How is this handled? Since Defender B1 was not going to contact Player A1, a foul cannot be called on him assuming he did not reach over and hit his opponent. If the contact by A1 is incidental, meaning it did not affect B1’s ability to continue play, no foul has occurred. If the contact initiated by A1 is more than incidental, an offensive foul shall be assessed. RULE 12B - SECTION VII The camera pans a bit during the replay, but I lined these images up in Photoshop as well as I could. Top is when Gobert first jumps and bottom is point of contact. Red lines indicate where George's torso started and green lines indicate where they ended up. As we can see, Gobert ends up well outside the red lines, indicating that there would have been no contact if George had not initiated it by lunging to his right. If anything, this could have been an offensive foul, but since the contact to Gobert was incidental as defined in the rules, I think a "no call" was correct.
I think people complain because referees USUALLY call that on the defender. If they just played by the book, it should never ever be a foul on the defender. Harden does not get this call by the way, he jumps into defenders like any other player - PG13 a few plays before this one and got the call - but to the side like this: no.
The "leaping into the defender sideways" is more of patent Kevin Love move. Zach Lowe actually discussed this a few days ago when it got Oladipo in early foul trouble.
