That's an obvious conspiracy and you still don't see that. You gotta be smarter. Stern is trying to add more legends to LBJ and has already constructed the story line of "LBJ single handedly leads the Cavs scrubs to win the series from 1-3 deficit and reach the NBA Final". Stern & Refs Doin' Work tonite.
at one point the lakers were winning points in the paint 48-28 and losing the free throw battle 23-19. kinda hard to argue the lakers are getting touch fouls and then getting away with murder on the other end or hard to argue that the nuggets have more free throws because they're attacking the basket when the stats look like that. the nuggets have still taken more free throws overall in this series. they're averaging 1.6 more fta/gm than the lakers. and guess what, in the regular season, the lakers shot 2 more fta/gm than their opponents and the nuggets show 3 more fta/gm than their opponents, meaning it should be right about even or 1 more per game for the nuggets. pretty much exactly what it is! but oh my, it must be a conspiracy against those wittle ol' nuggets, the same team that had a game handed to them so blatantly against dallas the league had to apologize afterwards. when will they catch a break and stop having to play 5 on 8? as for the persecuted nene, guess who finished 3rd in the league in fouls this year? we may as well have complained last series that chuck hayes was picking up a lot of fouls. it's just what they do. at least just admit you're always going to be a conspiracy-believing nut who thinks lebron and kobe get every call no matter what the actual numbers say and save all the outrage about how you just can't watch a wwe-like nba game any more for things like lakers/kings game 6 or the dwade finals or something that at least approaches suspicion.
I'll have to agree to disagree because Nene got to the spot first. He may have embellished his flop a little bit but it was nothing outrageous, IMO, compared to some of the many other flops we have seen (including those by our own Scola ). And I see your point about the fact that since there was contact made the refs felt compelled to make a call. However, there were other cases in that game where there was contact and the refs called nothing (pretty much the 2 minutes after that happened). I just wished that there was more consistency by the refs in making calls/no calls.
Nene flopped first, and once he flopped, he has no spot on the court. Gasol can intentionally trip himself by Nene and it would still be a blocking foul.
Uh, you weren't watching the same game I was. Once again, Nene got to the spot before Gasol. It really doesn't matter that he flopped, Gasol created contact - maybe not enough to make Nene hit the floor hard but by the rulebook, Nene did draw a charge. And I really don't know much about Nene other than he is from Brazil, plays for the Nuggets, goes by one name and had some form of cancer (maybe it was testicular?) but apparently he has quite the reputation of being a flopper since several people have gone on and on about his flopping. Curiously, none of the commentators (Van Gundy, Mark Jackson, and Breen) said anything about Nene flopping - just that it was a bad call and that he got to the spot first. Maybe Nene's reputation precedes himself on this one, I don't know. I do know that I am done arguing about it.
If he didn't fall, it would be blocking foul 100%. If he fell, he's got at least 50/50 chance. It the way it is called. People keep complaining about players flopping on defense. IMO, it's not the players' fault. They just play by the way it is called. If there is contact, and the defender does not fall, it's automatic blocking foul. It doesn't matter if the defender has position or not. That's BS. But that's the way it is. It encourages smaller players to drive recklessly throwing their bodies at the defender to "draw foul." Falling down to draw charge is the only way to play defense against that kind of foul calling. That's why offensive flopping is way way worse than defensive flopping.
There's only so much of the outcome the referees can change. If the Magic continually make 3-pointers or the Cleveland defense keeps letting Dwight Howard get an easy dunk at the beginning of an OT, there's not much a referee can do about it without making a blatantly obvious horribly call.
This is nothing new. Everyone knows the Lakers are NBA's darlings. It was unfair but it wasn't as bad as 2002 WCF game 6 or our dallas series.
I'm not sure we were watching the same game. During these playoffs I've generally been the first person to come to the defense of the refs, and I think the officiating has been very good -- much better than we've seen previously at least. Until last night. I'm not going to take much away from the Lakers. They played well. They executed as a team, and Odom finally showed up. And Denver missed several shots that they would normally not miss. But still, that 4th quarter was a travesty, a sham and a mockery. Multiple "blocks" by the Lakers were shown to be clear fouls on replay. I saw Carmelo drive into the paint repeatedly, get absolutely clobbered, and the referees just swallowed their whistles. It was disgusting. Nene fouled out on two consecutive bad calls, the first of which earned him a technical, and I don't blame him for going nuts on the ref. The second was even worse: his midsection fouled Gasol's elbow, he lost balance and earned his sixth foul. Denver was forced to go small against LA's front line for the rest of the game, and we got to hear ESPN's commentators sing Kobe's praises for managing to find Odom under the basket for a relatively uncontested layup + 1. For the first time since these playoffs started, I found myself genuinely questioning the NBA's officiating integrity again. What's the point of watching?
We won 14 NBA titles because of the refs.... We went to the NBA FINALS 29 times (Most in NBA HISTORY) becuz of the refs.... We won the most NBA GAMES IN NBA HISTORY because of the refs.... Thanks you refs for giving us all that history we really appreciate it!!
Tallying free throws is not a good way to prove balanced officiating. One call can change the entire complexion of a game.
So if the Lakers won 14 NBA titles because of the refs (this is what you are saying and/or implying) then the Celtics must be the greatest sports franchise ever since they have won more than 14 NBA titles and many times they were playing the Lakers in those finals who were being helped by the refs. My respect for Bill Russell and Larry Bird has increased tremendously due to this revelation.
I don't even know what happened. In fact I've barely just kept track of the playoffs by glancing at yahoo sports for a split second a couple times a week. Used to be that I wouldn't miss a minute of any playoff game. Even a playoff game where for instance, Larry Frickin Nance was the best player on the court. But nowadays, frankly, I just don't give a damn anymore. Thanks a lot Stern.
Thanks for not bothering to read what I wrote. It's one thing to search for reasons to think it's fixed (and that is lame--that's why I don't do it). Whether or not it's fixed is not the issue -- the problem is that the integrity of the game is compromised by bad officiating, period. Conspiracy or not, there's no point watching if the players aren't playing on a level field.
it's certainly not perfect, but it's a lot harder to go on and on about how much your team is getting screwed while they're scoring inside less and going to the line more for a large chunk of the game. certainly a lot of factors go into free throws - when you get in the penalty, off the ball fouls, bad calls, etc - but when people are trying to bring up a conspiracy when the calls are basically even is silly. 27 free throws in the 4th quarter for one team like in lakers/kings game 6? ok, that's pretty damn bad and hard to explain. the team scoring inside more having more free throws? not really crazy. was the call that fouled nene out a good call? didn't seem like it. was it at an important time? yes. was it the only missed call in the game? no. did the lakers suddenly get every call and carmelo get hacked 73 times (as bill simmons said) with no call? hardly. carmelo kept jumping into people under the basket and sometimes he got calls and sometimes he didn't. we definitely don't like when people just jump into yao and get calls when he's straight up and down so i'm not sure why gasol needs to get called for doing the same thing or else it's a fixed game. the only time i thought carmelo really didn't get a call was right toward the end of the "we're not calling anything" period when it looked like he was obviously slapped going up. but then i thought j.r. smith obviously slapped kobe going up for a layup just before that. neither was called. just like the lakers getting their asses kicked on the offensive glass was why they lost game 4 and not the 14 free throw differential, the nuggets missing 11 straight shots was why they suddenly found themselves down double digits in the 4th, not horrible officiating. the nuggets get every call in the 3rd quarter of game 1, most of the calls down the stretch of game 2, and shoot 14 more free throws in game 4, but nene gets a bad 6th foul in game 5 and now people don't ever want to watch the nba again. judging the officiating in an nba game is like reading nostradamus, you can pretty much make it out to be whatever you want if you're looking hard enough for it.
i did read what you wrote... ...and this game would certainly be a weird one to pick to decide that the players aren't on a level playing field. game 2 was much closer than this game down the stretch and billups just running into gasol and falling down 25 feet from the basket and getting 2 free throws with only 1:30 to go was an even bigger call than nene's 6th foul in game 5 (and at least as questionable), but since that wasn't the big market team getting the call no one cared. but nene gets a weak 6th foul and now to many there were black helicopters flying outside the arena and all of the referees' whistles had swooshes on them.
that's why in the nba when your opponent getting signs of favoritism you beat them so badly to the point that no amount of help from "darth stern" can make them win like with the cavs and the magic sad reality but its the truth
