Last year as NBA officials held back on calls during the playoffs, James was thrown off his game. He needs to look to make and create as many shots as possible. Refs doing this at this juncture of the season should be a blessing in disguise for James...
I think the NBA in general has been calling less fouls recently. Like I was watching Clippers - Spurs and there were barely any foul calls despite contact.
This is a valid argument. With all the floppers it's an extremely hard league to officiate. Then again there would be no reason to call an offensive foul as well. Offensive fouls being called, as much as they do, is just ridiculous. Used to they would only call it if the offensive player was completely out of control, not because the primary defense was beaten and someone else decided to get in front of the ball handler and fall down. I just think the league needs to decide if they want glorified street ball (no fouls) or an actual officiated game. I'd rather them go to more instant replays and elongate the game to get the right calls then, call BS because they can't accurately see the play action. If it's a foul then it needs to be called a foul. If it's not a foul after "further review" then reverse it. Just stick to the rules as written then no one will have anything to complain about.
All his fouls are legit. He's quick enough to snake his way into the paint and the fastest defenders are fouling him every time. I think of Harden's Eurostep as the fastest draw in the west. Kind of like that scene of Herod and the Kid in the final scenes of "The Quick & the Dead" The Kid (the defender) is damn quick and gets to Herod (Harden) in time but still fouls him...
I think Harden needs to be quicker to adjust if he isn't getting the calls. Don't keep trying. To keep doing what's not working won't be effective. That being said, he definitely gets fouled sometimes and it doesn't get called.
Harden gets hacked everytime he bulldozes to the rim. If you watch any of the games and slow it down you can see all the fouls the refs miss/or refuse to call right in front of them. It seems that when he makes the basket no whistle is called unless it's a blantaly foul. If every foul was called he'd probably have 50ft attempts a game.
Exactly. Esp after watching the playoffs last year when he wasn't getting the same calls he got in the reg season. I'd rather him (and the team) adjust to getting less calls now than the other way around (expecting to be treated the same in the playoffs) when the level of play changes and refs seems to let players "play" a little more
Exactly cdrive Bottom line for Rockets and McHale is that when the refs are swallowing the whistles to the ridiculous extent they were vs Bulls, you have almost zero chance to beat even average teams when fouls are so obviously one-sided When this happens, and the game looks unwinnable in 4Q, the team needs to take full advantage by getting extremely physical with the opponent, almost to the point where flagrants become the standard Rocket foul for the remainder of that game Not Harden or Dwight or the major contributors, but why the hell not empty the bench and let Dorsey/Capela/Canaan/Papa rack up flagrants the entire 4th Q? Much like Pop's minutes management in SA, sometimes it can be worth it to 'sacrifice' a reg season game if it pays off during the playoffs If HOU can establish a public precedent of getting screwed on FTs by refs now, it could create public pressure on the league in the playoffs if this happens again when it really matters No better way I can think of to completely undermine the league if they are, indeed, telling their refs to ignore legit contact on Harden NBA's goal is to improve ascthetic beauty and pace of the game - nothing uglier than a game slowed to a crawl with multiple reviews for flagrancy, tons of free throws, and nothing but bench players in the game playing football on the court ESPN, NBAtv, TNT and other national highlight shows would have no choice but to discuss, and maybe that will be enough to swing things back to the Rockets favor Then post-game McHale, Morey and Les need to start fighting the 'Free Harden' campaign through the media, backed up by stats that make the unfair disparity in fouls obvious to anyone listening Start leaking viral videos that show similar plays in the same game ... 1 showing how an opponent got a call immediately followed by 1 showing how Harden was fouled and got nothing Controversy sells, and positive change for the Rockets can probably only come from making it a game-to-game media frenzy I really hate the idea that my team needs to resort to such childish antics just to get a fair chance to win games, but that's the way the NBA works unfortunately Didn't all of this start when Bullard mentioned on-air that other teams were b!tching about Harden's excessive FT attempts? If their whining can actually change the way the refs call games, the Rockets have no recourse but to resort to the same tactics
