You couldn't have watched basketball in the magic, bird, jordan era. It was a hard foul, but nothing out of the ordinary.
Now is Haywood a hater: absolutely!! you can tell by his comments: "every play can't be a dunk-contest type of dunk." I like when players would challenge dunks by trying to block it. what happened to that?!
That was a flagrant foul!!! You dare question the authority of Kim Jung Stern!!! Now pray 300 times for you live to see the next day because of our great leader!!!
that's not a technical foul at all. that's a good clean foul. griffin needs to relax there. people need to realize a foul doesn't end until the damn guy stop shooting. that's why i don't like people fouling and then let the guy go for the and-1.
I agree that Haywood needed to tie him up to keep Griffin from scoring on the continuation. If he let go up that arm, it would have been an and-1 situation. Still, he got beat on the floor with the spin move. If he could have wrapped his arms around the guy, it would have been just a good hard foul. But he got beat badly and couldn't do anything but pull one arm. That's just dangerous; I don't see why Griffin should have done anything differently; and the tech was well-deserved.
most players would stop doing anything when a guy has their arms like that. griffin still tried the reverse? c'mon now. i guess expecting the types of fouls come with experience.
wow. I wasn't sure how I thought about this (because we're talking about Haywood), but after reading t_mac1's take, I have to go with that. spot on. If you are going to take the foul on the floor, please make sure the guy doesn't still shoot for an AND1. I have no problem with this since Griffin wasn't even jumping yet. I also have no problem with Griffin going for the dunk any chance he gets. Slam it HARD. Make them back off you. I do worry about him though. Check out how hard Griffin hits the floor when he has the odd notion that Elton Brand is going to let him do his superman thing from 8 feet out, in a single bound. Brand: "Think again Blake. I'm a human shield. A brick wall. No pansy-ass Haywood, here." <iframe title="YouTube video player" class="youtube-player" type="text/html" width="640" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/2KV8euB691c" frameborder="0" allowFullScreen></iframe> That is not a flagrant either. I wasn't called one.
It wasn't a pull, it was a hold...huge difference. It's perfectly fine to hold on to a player on continuation. If the offensive player continues to attempt the shot and gets injured, that's the risk of playing above the rim. It should only be a flagrant if he attacked Griffin either by pushing, pulling, or hitting him with his arms or body. Haywood shouldn't be punished because Griffin is so strong and athletic that he can fight through the hold for a while until after he leaves the ground.
I can't agree because Haywood just got beat on that play. He tries a little hack at the ball and misses. So he reaches with his other hand to try to grab the body, which would be smart but he's too late; Griffin is already launching himself and Haywood can't get a hold with his right hand. But, he has a hold on the arm with the left. I suppose my primary objection is to his advice that Griffin should have given up on the shot. He was already in his shot when Haywood gave up on contesting the ball and moved on to hacking the player. I can't object to a technical foul, because he wasn't defending the ball anymore. He was out of position, he got beat, and the foul he committed was dangerous because he was too slow to get his other arm around.
Definitely a flagrant foul...Haywood makes no attempt on the ball. His pathetic excuse for a strip rakes Blake across his face on the way down (why isn't anyone mentioning that?) then it's clearly a pull when Griffin is going up...you can see Haywoods arm pulling Griffin back to his body while holding his arm...I don't know what you guys are watching, but that's plain dirty. That's not much different that pulling someones jersey from behind when they're going up for a layup. A 'good hard foul' doesn't include grabbing a guy from behind just because he blew by you...that's cheap ass crap. That's how people get hurt. If you're going to grab some guy that's on a fastbreak or in the air because you don't want him to score, you have to make sure he's not going to get hurt or look like he could've gotten hurt, otherwise they'll call a flagrant everytime. The NBA is going to protect its product.
Blake needs to be like his idol..K-Mart and start layin these folks out...K-Mart used to be xxplosive as hell too but no one dared to attack him like they doing Blake....Oak Cliff would be on display...D-Town stand up!!!!!!!!
Alright, re-watched in slow motion. I was wrong. That foul was not before Griffin started elevating. That makes it too dangerous in my book to allow without a flagrant.
You've got to be kidding. He didn't have his "arms". He had ONE, which was his non-shooting arm. Not to mention, Blake was already starting to explode and was likely even off the ground a little bit before Haywood actually started pulling him down. It would be counterintuitive for any player to not follow through on that move.
If you are going to foul then FOUL. How many time have we seen players swipe at the ball and get a foul called on them. We always say, if youre going to foul make surethey dont finish the play. Griffin is a beast.
Freakin' GOF! But yeah, Griffin is fun to watch. I like how the main criticism from his peers seems to be that he tries too hard. Imagine that...
that doesn't look like a flagrant to me. using the rationale some are using that haywood got beat by so much that he shouldn't be allowed to foul hard, dwight howard would get 3-4 flagrants a game called for him. strong guys who throw down ridiculous dunks get their arms hacked without much play on the ball to prevent and-1's all the time. haywood didn't even hold on very long, just long enough to make sure griffin didn't get the shot up. it was just the fact that griffin somehow spun all the way around (haywood certainly didn't cause that much rotation) and didn't/couldn't protect himself that made it look worse than it was. edit: but i don't agree that griffin had any responsibility to stop. griffin's job is to go up strong. haywood's job is to make sure he doesn't get an and-1. watching slow motion replays always changes how we look at things that happen very quickly. expecting griffin to figure out he was being grabbed and to somehow adjust what was already in motion in .1 seconds is stupid. and haywood just basically turned and hacked griffin. all of this "was he/wasn't he already going" up talk seems ridiculous because haywood didn't exactly have time to sit there and analyze where in his flight plan griffin was. it all happened pretty much together. both guys did their job AFAIC.