Cartoon courtesy of Larry Johnson, WEEI
Today's Referees Are:
Dan Crawford
Home Team W/L 46-34
Home Team Win % in playoffs 55%
Calls 44 fouls per game
45.4% of fouls are called on the home team
.8 techs called on the road team, .9 Techs called on the home team
Crawford has officiated 1,600+ regular season games, 190+ play-off games and 18 NBA Finals games. Prior to the NBA, Crawford officiated in high school for 12 years, 8 years at the collegiate level (MVC and CCAC) and 4 years in the CBA (NBA development league). Crawford is a long time Chicago resident and was involved in a bit of controversy when he officiated a game in the Bulls series last year and then was seen exiting the arena with family members all decked out in Bulls gear. This post season, he called game 2 in Cleveland and Game 1 in Orlando, both Celtic wins.
Bill Kennedy
Home Team W/L 44-36
Home Team Win % in playoffs 33%
Calls 44.9 fouls per game
48.3% of fouls are called on the home team
.3 techs called on the road team, .8 Techs called on the home team
Kennedy has officiated over 460+ regular season games and 5+ play-off games. In a game in March of 2009, with just minutes to go in a close game, Kennedy gave Doc Rivers his second technical for seemingly doing nothing. The league fined Kennedy for his actions (they also fined Doc for complaining about it -go figure). According to Tim Donaghy, Bill Kennedy is gay and his beef with Doc stems from Doc questioning his sexual orientation. Kennedy officiated game 4 in Miami, which was a loss, and game 2 in Orlando, which the Celtics won. His 33% home team win % is the lowest of any ref working the playoffs.
Bennett Salvatore
Home Team W/L 48-24
Home Team Win % in playoffs 55%
Calls 47 fouls per game
48.6% of fouls are called on the home team
.7 techs called on the road team, 1 Tech called on the home team
Bennett Salvatore has refereed over 1,400 regular season games, 175+ playoff games and 20 NBA Finals games. Bennett has the distinction of being the worst referee alive today. The man is just incompetent. Salvatore seems to miss more calls and make more bad calls per game than all the other refs. Salvatore made one of the most controversial calls in NBA finals history in game 5 of the 2006 finals. The call basically gave the Heat their championship. Here is Bill Simmons' take on the call.
Salvatore called the foul on Wade's final drive in overtime (remember, the call where ABC couldn't find a replay to show that anyone touched him?) even though he was standing at midcourt a full 35-40 feet from the play, and even though two other refs were closer to the play. Not only was that NOT his call, he butchered it.
Another of Salvatore's controversial calls was in the 2008 conference finals when he waved off a contested 3-pointer that Pierce had hoisted over Richard Hamilton, inducing him to leave his feet with a ball fake and land on Pierce's back. Pierce, however, was charged with an offensive foul for creating the contact with Hamilton. Salvatore called game 3 of the Heat series which the Celtics won by 2 points. He was also the crew chief for game 3 of the Cavs series in which the Celtics were blown out. This is one of the games in the Celtics playoff run so far that most of us can point to as being called horribly. The Cavs were the only team who didn't cringe when seeing Salvatore on their crew as they were 9-0 this season when Salvatore called their games. Seeing Salvatore's name has to make every Celtics fan cringe a little as tonight's game just got a lot harder to win.
Here are a couple of video examples of Salvatore's ineptness.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxO_Gmtpm80&feature=player_embeddedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDM2eGpf5Hc&feature=player_embeddedSomething tells me that even though they are at home, with this crew, the Celtics will still be playing 5 on 8. They have to play their game and not let the refs get into their heads, just like they did in game 2.
Topic: Today's Official Report for Finals Game 3 6/8 (Read 7367 times)