Bad news: Referees for Game 4

[CelticBalla32]

Look, not to bang on anyone here but,



is anyone else getting a little tired of the complaining about officials before the game?

Yes, big time. I'm tired of it.

But for what it's worth: Laker fans hate Steve Javie.

[BballTim]

With the Feds now watching the NBA because of Donaghy's allegations,  I expect the refs to try to do their best.  The benefit of the doubt will always go to the home team, but if the Celtics come out aggressive and take it to the hoop early and often, they will get the calls. 

Forget the feds, the entire country is watching the refs.  This series could be make or break for the leagues credibility with the public and their fans.

This was clearly well timed by Donaghy.

  That ship sailed in the first half of game 3 when the Lakers built up their (widely predicted) 20-4 FT advantage. If Stern tries to point to the finals as proof that the refs are fair and unbiased he'll get laughed off the stage.

[Chris]

With the Feds now watching the NBA because of Donaghy's allegations,  I expect the refs to try to do their best.  The benefit of the doubt will always go to the home team, but if the Celtics come out aggressive and take it to the hoop early and often, they will get the calls. 

Forget the feds, the entire country is watching the refs.  This series could be make or break for the leagues credibility with the public and their fans.

This was clearly well timed by Donaghy.

Yep. So let them play, and may the better team win!

Exactly.

Who knows, maybe Donaghy will be to the NBA what Canseco has been to baseball.  A complete creep with no credibility, who somehow managed to help clean up the sport.

[Chris]

With the Feds now watching the NBA because of Donaghy's allegations,  I expect the refs to try to do their best.  The benefit of the doubt will always go to the home team, but if the Celtics come out aggressive and take it to the hoop early and often, they will get the calls. 

Forget the feds, the entire country is watching the refs.  This series could be make or break for the leagues credibility with the public and their fans.

This was clearly well timed by Donaghy.

  That ship sailed in the first half of game 3 when the Lakers built up their (widely predicted) 20-4 FT advantage. If Stern tries to point to the finals as proof that the refs are fair and unbiased he'll get laughed off the stage.

FT advantages have little to do with quality reffing.  The Lakers were more aggressive last game, and the C's were constantly reaching in. 

[hpantazo]

With the Feds now watching the NBA because of Donaghy's allegations,  I expect the refs to try to do their best.  The benefit of the doubt will always go to the home team, but if the Celtics come out aggressive and take it to the hoop early and often, they will get the calls. 

Forget the feds, the entire country is watching the refs.  This series could be make or break for the leagues credibility with the public and their fans.

This was clearly well timed by Donaghy.

  That ship sailed in the first half of game 3 when the Lakers built up their (widely predicted) 20-4 FT advantage. If Stern tries to point to the finals as proof that the refs are fair and unbiased he'll get laughed off the stage.

FT advantages have little to do with quality reffing.  The Lakers were more aggressive last game, and the C's were constantly reaching in. 

I agree, although the lakers apparently do not, since that is all they talked about after game 2

[ma11l]

Javie would've tossed Kobe from Game 3.  If him and Gasol keep up their antics and whining I wouldn't be surprised to see some more T's coming their way.  That should be a heads up to Perk too, he needs to stay on the straight and narrow tonight.

[spelz]

I agree Kobe deserved a second Technical in game three, but also understand there is no way a superstar is going to be ejected in an NBA Finals game.  Kobe does have 3 overall T's these playoffs.  Why does it take 15 T's during the regular season to get suspended one game and 7 during the playoffs to get suspended?  The playoffs equal about 1/4 of the regualr season.  By my math it should be 4 or 5 T's in the postseason to earn a one game suspension.

[wdleehi]

I agree Kobe deserved a second Technical in game three, but also understand there is no way a superstar is going to be ejected in an NBA Finals game.  Kobe does have 3 overall T's these playoffs.  Why does it take 15 T's during the regular season to get suspended one game and 7 during the playoffs to get suspended?  The playoffs equal about 1/4 of the regualr season.  By my math it should be 4 or 5 T's in the postseason to earn a one game suspension.

because emotions are higher and the NBA really doesn't want to have players suspended.


Plus, if the NBA really wanted to cut it down, they wouldn't reset the number in the playoffs. 

[BballTim]

With the Feds now watching the NBA because of Donaghy's allegations,  I expect the refs to try to do their best.  The benefit of the doubt will always go to the home team, but if the Celtics come out aggressive and take it to the hoop early and often, they will get the calls. 

Forget the feds, the entire country is watching the refs.  This series could be make or break for the leagues credibility with the public and their fans.

This was clearly well timed by Donaghy.

  That ship sailed in the first half of game 3 when the Lakers built up their (widely predicted) 20-4 FT advantage. If Stern tries to point to the finals as proof that the refs are fair and unbiased he'll get laughed off the stage.

FT advantages have little to do with quality reffing.  The Lakers were more aggressive last game, and the C's were constantly reaching in. 

  First of all, there's a chicken and egg thing. Did the Lakers get the calls because they drove to the hoop, or did they drive to the hoop because they knew they'd get calls if they did?

  Secondly, credibility is based largely on perception. If a lot of people predict a big FT advantage for the Lakers and they then get a large FT advantage, claiming that those predictions were wrong but the result just happened to match the predictions is a tough sell.

[a tommy point]

Check it: I don't want to harp on the officials before the games are even played.  Heck, I don't want to harp on the officials after the games are played.  However, I'm left scratching my head at some of these crews the NBA is trotting out in the Finals.  Joe DeRosa and Tom Washington?  They were part of one of the crews that ended up giving Atlanta near 50 free throws in their building during our series.

I've been especially hard on the officials for the past 15 seasons.  Games are never called consistently for long, though, there are enough recognizable patterns in how certain officials call games to make me think that each crew is given specific games for specific whistle-blowing tendencies.

[hpantazo]

I don't understand why, for the finals, the nba doesn't anounce the ref assignments all at once before the start of the series. I mean, there are no ther games going on so no scheduling problems. The refs must know who is reffing game 4 before game 1 starts.

[wdleehi]

I don't understand why, for the finals, the nba doesn't anounce the ref assignments all at once before the start of the series. I mean, there are no ther games going on so no scheduling problems. The refs must know who is reffing game 4 before game 1 starts.

I don't understand why they just don't use one crew for the series. 

[hpantazo]

I don't understand why, for the finals, the nba doesn't anounce the ref assignments all at once before the start of the series. I mean, there are no ther games going on so no scheduling problems. The refs must know who is reffing game 4 before game 1 starts.

I don't understand why they just don't use one crew for the series. 

that's a great idea, at least the games would be called consistently

[fairweatherfan]

I don't understand why, for the finals, the nba doesn't anounce the ref assignments all at once before the start of the series. I mean, there are no ther games going on so no scheduling problems. The refs must know who is reffing game 4 before game 1 starts.

I don't understand why they just don't use one crew for the series. 

You kidding?  With all the controversy attached to individual refs for their performance in a single game, imagine if the same refs got trotted out for every game that series.  Look at Joey Crawford in the Spurs-Lakers series.  Whether you think the last call was right or wrong, is there any way he officiates 1-3 more games in that series without that call looking over his shoulder?  He would have to be psychologically superhuman for that call, and the controversy around it, to not affect his later officiating in some way or another. 

If the same refs were assigned to every game the refs would be given as much attention and importance in the series as the star players.  Nobody wants refs to be the center of attention - it's bad news for the league when refs are seen as major factors in deciding a game, and far worse when "oh, and he's reffing every single game for the rest of the series too" is attached.

[Ersatz]

The key for me is'nt the foul call disparity...To me its the the disparity on the quality of the fouls..A foul should be a foul on both ends of the floor..

So if one team is allowed to hack the other and get NO CALLs..Yet the other team gets called for tickey tack fouls that is the problem..

This is why I didn't think game 2 was so badly officiated. KG got called for a foul on a screen for lowering his shoulder just a bit, but then a few minutes later Kobe got called for the offensive foul when he elbowed Ray a little bit. Seemed pretty fair to me: the refs established pretty quickly what a foul was and applied it evenly.