If you saw the Gonzago upset by Nevada you might change their mind. The referees took Gonzaga's dominant inside presense (I believe his name was Turiaf or something like that) completely out of the game by calling phantom fouls on him. Dude had 3 in first half early then set the bench until the 2nd half and then picked up #4 right after halftime. Only 2 out of 5 of his fouls were even close to being fouls. I'm not a Gonzaga fan, but they got robbed in that game. Not having their dominant post presence cost them significantly in that game. I think it caused them to lose the game. When that player was in the game, no Nevada player could not hang with him. He was too big and too good. Unfortunately for him and Gonzaga, some bad officiating kept him on the bench and Nevada in the game. Sometimes college refs are every bit as bad as NBA refs.
Not only were we not getting calls in the blazers game, the calls we were getting actually hurt us. Several times, Yao received the ball in scoring position and THEN the refs call a foul on the shove. Then, we had to take the ball out of bounds, and struggle to get him the ball again. This also happened when Yao came down with a rebound and was about to dunk it. Foul. Ball out of bounds. It evened up the foul calls, but the calling of those fouls hurt us. And the Randolph continuation was the worst I have ever seen, especially after Yao had an identical play about a minute before, without the and1.
I dont think that Steve and Cuttino should be called whiners when opponents are fouling them constantly without it getting called. In Sacramento Steve got hit in the balls, at GS Pietrus was pushing on Steve all night long, Shaq kicking the ball, hell even the block in Sac was a completely blown call. I understand that you cant complain about every call, but ones that have an actual affect on the game or are just horrible warrant the refs getting a mouthfull. On another note, I dont live in Texas right now, so I dont see every game or read the Chronicle, but do you guys get a feeling of how JVG and the players feel about each other? Rudy's ability to actually befriend players promoted a family like feeling that I dont see anymore that I think was key to signing a lot of free agents.
I don't know if anybody just caught "The Insiders" on NBATV, but they have a segment with head of officiating with Ronnie Nunn where they go over potential blown calls. They showed 2 rocket plays. The first was the infamous groin shot on Francis at Sacramento. Nunn said it was inconclusive, because you can't tell whether or not the contact was a "hard touch" or "soft touch". While I think Francis clutching his nads tend to indiicate that it was the former (although even a 'soft' shot to the groin should be a foul, IMO), it probably wasn't apparent to the official until too late that that was the case. The second was a play from vs. Portland where Yao ran down court and tried to set up position, he was running at full speed next to ratliff and the Ratliff abruptly stopped and tossed his elbow into him, then shoved/pushed him around the key for the rest of the play. Nunn said that the contact was too much and it should have been a foul.
