Haha. 5 years running. Again, it's not that he fixes games, he's just a jerk-off who kills, or willfully shifts momentum in a game.
We were playing exactly how we need to to beat them, then the wistles came out! Totally neutralized Beverley and took away our edge! Not sure if intentional, but certainly change the game in OKCs favor!
It's pretty ironic. All season I've read so much moaning about how "refs swallow whistles in the playoffs" and how we can't succeed because of that. It baffled me during the season because I never see it before in the playoffs. And it's obviously not true right now because the refs blow plenty of whistles in this series. The only thing is, we lack the cred to get those calls.
You obviously didn't watch the game The agenda was definitely obvious tonite. Make Beverly a non factor and make sure we don't start off too hot. If you didnt notice, as SOON as we got out to our first lead that's exactly when the bogus calls came. The flow was terrible in the first 5 minutes. Is that a accident
Or...Beverley made some pretty dumb plays getting himself into foul trouble. The fouls that were called on him were fouls. Did it suck that they were called? Sure. Could you find examples of other plays where that stuff happened and wasn't called? Absolutely. Does that mean it was rigged? No, and the very idea of that is stupid. If the refs were trying to fix the game for the Thunder they sure did a piss poor job. If it weren't for an incredibly lucky bounce for Durant we would have had the ball and a two point lead with about 35 seconds left. The refs didn't cause that ball to fall in. The refs didn't cause Harden to turn it over. And the refs didn't block Delfino's shot at the end.
I can agree that this happens sometimes. The team that's hustling will tend to get more calls. I'm not sure if that's ref bias towards the more aggressive team or just that the more active team is getting to the paint more frequently, either way it does happen. I had no problem with the way the game was officiated. Beverley getting into foul trouble sucked, but besides that I thought they called a pretty consistent game.
They called a bunch of fouls on us at the start of the first quarter, and a bunch on okc near the end. Sure equalising fouls is one thing, but 7 minutes in the penalty vs 2 is night and day. And half the problem is that the last game we had Danny Crawford, whose usually pretty straight up, and this game Joey Crawford whose a bit of a schmuck.
So the responsibility of the refs is to make sure both teams have an equal amount of time in the penalty?
I watched the first quarter and the refs killed all of the Rockets momentum. 2 quick fouls on Harden and Bev putting OKC in the bonus with 8 minutes left. Rewatch the first quarter and tell me it was fairly officiated. So many bad fouls, wrong calls in OKC's favor.
I did watch the first quarter. Beverley's fouls were legitimate fouls. It wasnt OKC being in the penalty that killed us. We couldn't stop Durant in the first half period. It didnt matter they were in the penalty. He was hitting everything. Let's rewind to game 2. Lets see...was there a Thunder player who was taken out really early because he got two quick fouls? Hmm..
Why are you bringing up game 2? ESPN replayed the game and I watched the first quarter on DVR. The officials missed a ton of calls and made many wrong calls against the Rockets. We came out with energy and took a 9-1 lead, then the next 2 minutes of the game took 10 minutes to play thanks to the refs.
I don't wanna blame the refs for this loss cuz we still had an opportunity to win... But they had an agenda going into the game. Don't let Beverley get going so that no cheap shots are taken. Which completely ruined our hot start!
I agree the Joey sucks and I think we got bad calls the last two games. I thought we should have got some home calls tonight since OKC got the home court calls last game. I don't agree that the fix is in on games. The NBA generates around 4 billion a year, they would risk that by fixing games, nobody is that stupid.
There were a couple of clear non-calls against Harden last night. Also Lin got hit on a drive with no call. Don't get me started on game 2. We might have won that game by 10 points had it been officiated fairly!
Well, you do realize that a chunk of that 4 billion dollar revenue comes from FIXING games.. In big games, you'll see an impact player get 2 quick fouls and have to ride the bench, or you'll see a lot of fouls called early in a 4th quarter so the other team is in the penalty fast, or you'll see very questionable calls down the stretch should it still be a close game. It's a shame how much the refs impact the game... which can be apparent when you just do a google search. Type in "nba refs" and you'll see the top few results are "cheat" "corrupt" "wired" It's no secret, and even if it's not true, most of the fans out there think there's at least some truth to it.
After Durant made his ridiculously lucky 3, McHale was FURIOUSLY calling for a timeout and none of the officials gave it to him. Cue James Harden rushed pass + turnover.