Maybe no surprise to some here, but... On 790 with Matt and Adam, Donaghy says refs were given instruction to concentrate on Yao Ming and his "illegal screens". Matt asked if there was any "smoke to the fire" regarding that series before that response. Donaghy says more information is in the book. Hopefully a podcast will be put up.
i don't know. Yao was very bad at making moving screens at the time and it was well known that Cuban sent in tape on the subject. I believe i even remember them saying they were focusing on that. IMO, there was nothing wrong with ref's focusing in on a recurring violation. Now the finley out of bounds play.....
We don't need Donaghy words......we all saw how we got screwed with the out of bounds ball steal on Jon Barry, where the REF was clearly standing there.
It was apparent after game 2 that Cuban wanted the refs to concentrate on Yao. He sent in videos... Game 5 was brutal. You could tell they were favoring Dallas.. Dirk could do whatever he wanted... Yao got hammered... I would believe him with this.
This interview is still going on, I wish they would ask: "Other than the Mavs series, are there any other biases regarding the Rockets?"
Reported back in 08 when Donaghy said this.... I can't seem to find that game 5 highlight video with all the ref screw ups.
Let's look at this objectively. What is necessarily wrong with the league office telling officials "Hey, you are not calling the moving screen the right way with regards to Yao Ming. You are to enforce that rule the way it is written." If we found out that they sent out a notice saying "You are not calling the charge appropriately with regards to Shane Battier. You have incorrectly called him for blocking fouls repeatedly. You are to strictly enforce this rule the way it is written" would we have a problem with that? Telling them to call the rules the right way is not an indication that they fixed the games.
How so? If Cuban sent tapes that demonstrated that the referees were not calling the fouls on Yao correctly and the league told the refs to start calling the the right way, how is that favoritism? Wouldn't it be favoritism to the Rockets to not tell your referees to enforce the rules? I don't want to defend the league, but this specific issue is not an example of any egregious behavior in my opinion. It isn't like the refs were told to start calling phantom moving screens on Yao in order to benefit the Rockets. By all the reports, the refs were simply told to call the rule the way it is supposed to be called. I actually think that is a good thing.
EVERYONE was bad with moving screens. The fix was that Yao was the only one actually getting penalized for it.
That series was rigged, nothing new there, this just confirms it. also, Classics from the original 'Photoshop the Pain' thread. http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=95743&page=1&pp=20
I think the problem is in pointing out a particular player. It would be ok to say "You need to make sure you are calling moving screens when they occur." I don't think it's ok to say "Pay very close attention to this one player and call him for moving screens when they occur." I think the latter wording might cause referees to only focus on that one player, allowing everyone else (including every player on the other team), to continue setting moving screens. It might also make referees more likely to anticipate the call and fall for flops than they otherwise would.
I'd answer this by saying that the Mavs were getting away with illegal screens even after Cuban reported the issue.... Dirk and Erica were setting illegal screens on Sura, James, T-Mac, Padgett... so can you explain why that was happening even after they corrected the problem... though it looked as if they only called it when Yao was doing it.
