There, I said it. I am so freakin' tired of all the homers in here whining about bad calls. We had one highly consequential bad call against us: Kirilenko's flop at the end of Game 4. Even that game wouldn't have been as close as it was in the final minute if the refs hadn't cut us a lot of breaks. The referees do not hate the Rockets, people. If anything, they seem to like Adelman a lot more than they liked Van Gundy, and it shows. The #1 ref bias in this series, IMHO, was that we were hobbled and short-handed, and we were down 2 games at home to start the series, and the refs either felt bad for us, or wanted to help us make it a series, or just respected the hell out of our hustle, or all of the above. They gave us calls and non-calls in Utah's building that we had no right to expect. Luis Scola would have been gone before the 4th quarters if he'd been called for every slap. I'm not saying the Jazz are choirboys. They're nasty little thugs who specialize in the forearm to the back. But we caught tons of breaks, and it helped us pick up some extra points at the line on offense, and more important, it kept our guys on the court when we had nobody good off the bench to replace them with. So, thank you, NBA referees. You helped us make this a series. I hope we did you proud.
if you watch the game closely you can see okur elbow people in the back and cheat shot the rockets when they are like going for the reb.
I disagree with you my friend, I'm not saying the refs always made the wrong call or that they completely screwed us in this series, I just feel like after watching pretty much every game that the calls were not 50/50 down the middle. I felt like the Jazz got a lot of good calls that they shouldn't have, and I think the series would have been a little more interesting had they hadn't. With that said, I think they are a way better team than the one we put on the floor and the fact that we weren't swept (like the Suns) makes me feel good. All in all you are right, the refs didn't decide the series, but that doesn't mean they did a good job.
You're exaggerating a bit. I agree the refereeing wasn't that bad overall in the series, and I agree we caught some breaks. But on average, I think it was actually a decently officiated series. I disagree also that the refs helped us "make a series" out of it, that's just not true at all, especially considering the fact that we may have lost a game because of crucial late-game flops (and ensuing bad calls) that -- had they not been called -- may have swung a game our way. The one thing the refs have rewarded throughout the series is aggressiveness, and they traditionally have in past years as well so no surprises there. When we were more assertive, we got some calls our way, when we let the Jazz push us around and bully us, we suffered for it. That's the way it's been called in the league for a while now. Refs reward aggressive play.
Was Kirilenko game 2? I can't remember. I'm thinking of the one where they took away Jackson's 3. I commend to you game 6, McGrady going 1-on-3 in transition, just plain losing the ball, and getting 2 FTs for colliding as he's moving AWAY from it.
I disagree, they were pushing off when we tried to secure rebounds. Anybody visit this site? http://www.makingpages.org/hoops/jazzholes-2002.html Seems to describe the current Jazz to a tee.
all it takes is one bad call on an Ak flop to change the outcome of the series the refs in general suck b/c they're not consistent or if they are they're consistently bad
sure, there were plenty of fouls that weren't called against the Rockets that could have been and plenty that were and shouldn't haven't been...and visa versa with respect to utah. HOWEVER, the team that commits the most fouls all season was UTAH, while the rockets were 25th. somehow that didn't translate in this series, and I can't believe that utah suddenly broke all their bad habits from the season while houston did the opposite.
The fact of the matter is the refs are inconsistent. I don't care if we don't get any calls as long as the other team isn't getting the same calls. So we did get some breaks in game 5. It was about time, and it didn't matter too much anyway because either way, we would've destroyed them.
My alltime favorite were the two Jazz yahoos who gabbed Scola under the basket by each arm, fell to the floor and the foul was called on Scola. The play was so damn bad I had to laugh. Scola had the most shocked look on his face.
I disagree with the OP. Jazz where doing lots of fouls during rebounds, grabs and holds. The flopping was just the most obvious stuff on replays, but lots of fouls just didn't get called. I think the refs did ok, but they definitely did not favor us. They really let Utah get away with murder out there under the pretense of "physicality".
That play, even more than AK's flop, truly defined the series and how it was called. We were definitely not favored, Utah got away with bunches of stuff.
This thread is plain stupid, no numbers, no facts, just out of fantasy. total fouls against the Jazz in 6 games: 131 total fouls against the Rox in 6 games: 127 regular season fouls average for Jazz: 24.02 regular season fouls average for Rox: 19.62 So, in the playoff series vs Rox, the Jazz only averaged 21.83 per game, 2.19 fouls below their regular season average. The Rox averaged 21.17 fouls in the series, 1.55 fouls above their regular season average. The Jazz actually played like p*****s and that's why their fouls were below their season average.
Like Harpring does so well - drive into the defender with your chest, push him off to create room for your shot at the basket and get the defender called for the foul on your aggression. We really do need to watch Jazz tape all summer and first copy some of their offense, and then play them in a copycat manner on offense and defense. But what do you think would happen if Tmac guarded AK and went SLAP SLAP SLAP SLAP SLAP SLAP SLAP SLAP? I hear whistles.....
Whether one likes JVG or not, I thought he made some excellent points the other day on the radio. He mentioned that Utah aggressively fouls starting at the beginning of the game, and accepts some fouls early on, but dare the refs to keep calling them. The refs tire of making calls, enabling them to beat up the other team, and wear a player like McGrady down, so by the 4th quarter, he doesn't have much left. I thought it was an excellent point. I don't think the refs favored the Jazz, exactly, since there were calls both ways, but that Utah wore them down, so they got away with more fouls. When we played aggressively back, we got away with some too, but when we didn't, Utah got away with a lot more fouls than we did.
