If the refs called that blatant push off in the 1st place there would be no shot at all and it'll be Mav's ball.
Again though, the refs swallowing their whistles favors the defense every time. Which they decided to do. If Harden doesn't push of I'm certain Marion would have just held onto him and of course the refs would have called nothing.
I guess, but the Mavs were hot and we were not. Refs have nothing to do about that. It either is a foul or not and the refs missed several pretty clear fouls on our guys at the end of the game. If this happened to the Mavs, Cuban would make sure the refs knew about it. Sometimes that **** works. Whether it shouldn't matter or not is irrelevant to the point of if it was a foul or not.
on this play I thought Ellis actually poked the ball out before he fouled him and Harden just did the motion like he was trying to shoot it. I think it's a fair no call. On a sidenote, Howard got fouled a few times that should have been called, but whatevers. It should have never came to this in the first place. We just didn't have an answer for Dirk or Monta defensively.
I see Mark Cuban having a hand in this. He probably told the refs to swallow the whistle and there would be a nice little bonus waiting for them afterwards...
The thing that should be noted is that the botched call could've screwed the Mavs, as well. If Harden's shot had gone in, Dallas would've had a very legitimate beef that they intentionally fouled before the shot and the official for whatever reason refused to call it. I know it won't happen, but this is the type of mistake that should result in serious discipline (and the NBA making an example of the official). When a team is up 3 in the closing seconds, officials know that an intentional foul on the ballhandler is a strong possibility. There's no excuse for not watching it. And as for Marion not fouling "hard enough", that's a little ridiculous. If Marion goes any harder, Harden would feel it coming and preemptively shoot his way into three free throws. Marion did what he was supposed to do -- quickly grab Harden with both arms to send him to the line for two. Honestly, the entire final 6 seconds were a cluster**** due to that mistake. The Mavs wanted an intentional foul out of the timeout, did it, and weren't acknowledged. Meanwhile, Harden felt the foul and ultimately threw up his potential tying three before he was ready (in an effort to get 3 FTs). Everyone lost out, all thanks to the official refusing to call what was right in front of him. That's unacceptable. My assumption is that this particular official made his choice out of the ever-present "old school" mentality that an official shouldn't decide a game on his whistle. Unfortunately, when it comes to the awkward scenario of intentional fouling, an official can just as easily decide the game by not calling it.
This post is so accurate and points to such a huge problem in the NBA and one David Stern has always refused to acknowledge. The lack of consistency of what a foul actually is. What is a foul in the 1st quarter is not a foul in the 4th quarter. A lot of times the officials will wait to see if a ball goes in before calling a foul. That is BS. There was a play where Monte Ellis lowered his shoulder and and drove into James, who then put both hands on Monte which resulted in a foul. No problem because by the letter of the law a defender is not allowed to put two hands on an offensive player with the ball. The problem is that the Mav's were doing it all night against James but with no call. Then there is the reputation and superstar calls. These aren't just Rockets issues but they are just generally bad calls period. As bad as the game was called last night against the Rockets there wasn't a Dallas fan close to me that didn't think they weren't getting screwed by the refs all night.
Serious discipline? The refs aren't calling the fouls because they're to focused on calling technicals for touching the ball after a made shot & for hanging to long on the rim.
