I'm watching the playoffs and I must say, I think the officiating is better across the board. Not to say mistakes still aren't made but I think the refs are noticeably doing more of the following: Not calling a foul when a player drives to the basket, creating the contact and expecting a foul. Not calling blocks as charges that are unwarranted. Not calling ticky tacky over the backs. Basically just letting small contacts slide and letting the players decide the game.
I would say generally yes. However I still see floppers being rewarded and that has been my biggest complaint for ages. One exception to that has been Devin Harris. In the first game, they bought all of his flops. For last couple of games however, they haven't rewarded him as much.
Please are you kidding me? Just saw the ref blow a big call when one the Jazz players grabbed juwan by the leg. Even the TNT announcer laugh at the replay of that no call. Someone please post a pick.
I think is worst, but dunno. I didn't watch last year playoff except for the Sun's games. On TNT today, barkley just criticize the officiating during the halftime of the spur vs. denver game about Duncan and Ginobili not getting calls.
Consistency. I dont care how much contact they allow, but they need to be consistent with what is a whistle. Deron Williams, Jason Terry, and Dirk Nowitski getting some feather-light contact called on jumpshots while tougher contact on everyone(all 8 series) goes uncalled down in the paint. Ticky Tack reach-ins(meaning inconsequential to the play) getting called, but harder contact on strips(which result in turnovers) being let go. The fact that Kenny Smith could flat out say that had Carlos Boozer charged into Chuck Hayes at the end of game 5 rather than Derek Fisher the call would have been different says alot about the officiating situation. A charge is a charge, dont matter if its Lebron James or Vasilis Spanoulis.
Except on that exact play they called a foul and Yao shot, and made, 2 FT's. Cant call 2 fouls on the same play.
One thing I hate about the officials this year is that they are not giving Yao any respect. This is not just because I'm a Rockets fan, but seriously, what does the guy have to do to get a call. On many of the so-called blocks or rips, it is clear that the guy has about 80% of Yao' forearm and the refs don't call it. Whats even more annoying is that Deron Williams is getting the most ticky-tajy fouls
Yao is getting a lot of foul calls. Utah is playing him on the assumption that the refs won't call all of them, and they're right. Refs everywhere, at every level will let things go on the same player after a while. It's not right, but it's normal.
At least the refs aren't taking Yao out on the defensive end. The refs during that Mavs series were nightmarish in how they'd call ticky-tack crap on Yao whenever Terry or Howard would hurl themselves at Yao when he had his hands straight up. This year, it's better, at least in that regard. The NBA refs have done a better job of allowing a defending player his space to go straight up or down. Also, they aren't calling those annoying moving picks nearly as much. I'd rather the refs miss a hack or two on Yao on the offensive end than completely take him out of the game on the defensive end with BS touch fouls.
Well now that Joey Crawford is gone ... J/K. Actually I think the way they've officiated the Rockets-Jazz series leaves a lot to be desired. It's like the new handcheck rules never existed -- they're letting a team that was ranked 18th in the league in defensive efficiency get away with it now by hacking and bumping and checking and playing dirty. If I had a dollar for every time someone hacked at Yao's arm and got away with it...
It's just as bad as it always is. Just look at the free throw disparities for our series home and away, why do games have to be called differently based on home court?
The officials are terrible, they are only calling about 30% of fouls committed against Yao Ming. Some of them so blatently obvious that one would think that the NBA was using blind refs!!
