I was there and was able to witness first hand how Derek Fisher's defense consists entirely of pushing, jabbing, grabbing T-mac off the ball. Then when he does get the ball, he hand checks all the time. Why can only Derek Fisher and the Jazz get away with this? The hand check was made into a foul years ago. Yet, he's allowed to do it. The Rockets should be sending tapes to the officiating office...
The whole team got a lot of physical play on the rockets. It took a few times before they called the reach ins that Okur had on Yao. To their credit, the refs did call the game pretty fair on both ends and let each team play physical in the paint. But of course there were a few that really should have been called.
I am a bit worried that the Jazz can get away with a lot more dirty plays once the series head to Utah.
The Jazz practice with their home countries' Olympic team in the offseason. ...Their home countries' Olympic wrestling team.
Yeah that is a very scary thought. the fact that the refs let it be that physical here at Home, im worried we will get some horrrendous flopping calls there in Utah. It's not the first time we have played there with these types of stakes.
There was one stretch where they were reaching hard on McGrady and I was bewildered at a lack of a foul call. Took the third reach-in for them to finally blow the whistle. There were too many light contact fouls(including one on D-Fish that was a makeup from a foul that should have been called on Boozer earlier in the play) that were inconsistent with some harder fouls that they let go. I did like the fact that unless your name was Carlos Boozer they didnt automatically give the foul call in favor of the offense running into the defense if the D was holding or giving ground.
They did the same thing with Okur on Yao. He reached in a few times before they finally called him for the foul. There is no way you can go for a steal on Yao in the post and not make big time contact with the guy. Not to mention the fact that they did have two hands on him a lot of times when he was getting the ball in the post. Like i mentioned the refs did a good job of being decently fair but they did a let a lot of physical play happen down low and i hope they don't have Utah glasses on when we go over there.
I've also noticed that many times when a Utah player is inside on offense, after he shoots, he'll fall over or stumble, which the refs did not fall for. I was happy about that.
OH, and Andrei fell over almost every time he tried to grab an offensive rebound from Yao. Maybe it's my bias, but they seem to try to fool the refs by making it SEEM rough on them sometimes.
It's actually weird to see that their one time great player AK47 basically riding the pine most of the game. He is really having a bad year....good news for us.
this is standard officiating for playoffs. refs swallow their whistles for the most part unless it is *REAL* obvious. that is something the floppers on the Jazz gonna have to learn, you aint gonna get them calls like you did in the season.
Speaking of fouls, I liked how vocal Yao seemed about protesting to the refs about missed calls. If it were anyone else, I would think they were whining, but with Yao, he really needs to keep this up to get the refs' attention, esp. in the playoffs.
I didn't realize Harpring was such a flopper and baby til this game. He's my least favorite Jazz player on the current roster.
The flops were annoying me but i'll give him credit for playing as hard as he did. The Jazz were extremely predictable on offense. Harpring was at least trying to post up and attack the basket. Not to mention he had about 4-5 really great hustle plays that kept the Jazz in it. I may not like him but I certainly do respect him.
okur kept had this flop whenever yao is on offense. he would lean his head back. wow, he overdid it big time. the refs only fell for it once. the jazz need to learn.
