Who knows the rulebook?

I think what the refs were calling on that, was that Yao turned/pivoted into Vince, who was cutting through, and impeded his progress.

Its probably considered an illegal screen/pick. Cheap call overall IMO.

 

while it can be seen as an offensive foul, you see that play all the time and almost never see an offensive foul called.

 

They wouldn't have called it if it was anybody else besides Vince... who's slowly becoming one of the best floppers in the league (hey... if you can't ever stay healthy, you need all the help you can get.)

Yao normally gets away with more (when he bends over and sticks out his you know what)... but this time, he literally turned to look at the shot while Carter was simultaneously running into him...

Cheap call... and what riles me is that he was ONLY in foul trouble today because of the cheap offensive foul calls.

He has some bad habits that he needs to break on his defensive fouls (which are mostly legit), but refs should NEVER take the ball out of his hand when he's hardly banging those guys on that end.

Now, MO-T... he's a different story all-to-gether.

 

Yeah that call was a laugher.

Arguably VC was the defender and ran right into Yao. If anything that's a defensive foul. You gotta give the guy at least room to breathe.

 

I don't think you can call that a flop. Carter might have initiated the contact, but it was at least significant contact, not some phantom thing.

Also, I think the call was legit. Something that isn't usually called, but legit. In fact, I think Yao did it intentionally to impede Carter.

 

I am no rule book expert but that was a BAD call.....

I do know however that the hop most players use while driving to the basket is a rarely called violation known as TRAVELING!!!
I think Vinsanity did it last night, got the basket and the foul...

Basically it breaks down like this;
One Hop = Two Steps
Two Hops = Four Steps
So I will give you the one hop since technically it is two steps which is allowed under the rules but the double hop should be called every time IMHO.

 

According to the case you described, there is no way an offensive foul. The ref must have seen sth different.

 

I don't think Ginobilli has ever NOT travelled when driving to the basket...

 

I have watched a lot of basketball in my time, and I have never, ever seen that call before.

 

Yet the rulebook definitly describes a "jumpstop" which IS legal.

Now, the question is... what is a jumpstop?

 

the way most NBA players hop that you've seen on TV is legal and effective. They have not completely stop the dribble until right after they started to hop if you look really close (a jumpstop). If you've seen Reggie Miller years ago when he's in his prime, he used to do the same thing to on his jumpers but when dribbling to the left, he would jump back to create room for his shot. If you completedly stop your dribble and hop once, twice or 10 times, it's a traveling violation no matter what.

I've never seen anybody hop twice and get a way with it. Normally they would just hop once as they are completing their dribble.

 

The Raptors announcers seem to disagree with that calls. They said something like "how can they call that a foul on Yao?". Then they showed the replay and decided that it was just horrible and BS.

The Raptors announcers are definitely YOF, and to a certainly degree SOF. They spent more time talking about Yao than on Vince.

 

As bad as that call was, the next foul that was called on Yao was bad. Rod Strickland was driving the lane, and Yao came over to help. Strickland was going baseline under the rim and Yao had established position. Hot Rod decided to lower his shoulder and see if he could go through Yao, even though Yao was set and blocking the area pretty much from the rim to the baseline.

I don't know if the refs thought Yao was "inside the circle" where it is pretty automatic that the foul goes on the defense or what, but it seemed rather questionable, especially since the previous trip for the Rockets had SF drive and get contact with no call.

 

There seems to be a gray area in the rulebook for me:
When a point guard dribbles up the court, can the offensive player run straight into defender that doesn't have position who's not trying to take a charge? I don't think you can initiate contact like that, can you? What's the difference between that instance and what Yao did? Sometimes a charge doesn't necessarily mean the defender needs to have position right?

 

I still thought this was more legit than his offensive foul call.

Yao's got a few bad habits on defense... swinging his arms down to block a shot is one. stepping out on the pick and roll is another (although, he's improved this greatly).

Yao was just a tad bit late on that play, even though he appeared set when Rod eventually bumped him. You kinda wish that Yao would just be calm and not worry too much about tiny Rod, since he can still block his shot even if he's not directly in front of him.

Those calls are more in-tune with the rules (even though they're still kinda cheap)... its when they're preceded by meaningless offensive foul calls that makes the refs look like they're out to get Yao.

 

Stepping out on the P & R is the right way to defend it. JVG has been wanting him to step out ever since he took over. He's bad at recovering after showing on the P&R, but that's not out of bad habit, its out of having slow foot speed.