All 9 MISSED foul calls by the refs against the Rockets an expertise needed

And we're about to add Melo. I see us becoming the Bad Boys of 2019: Everyone hates us, so we win a title and rub their faces in it.

 

ppl keep saying the OP calls were 2nd half. The first two are at the end of the 1st half. We are dominating the first half (15pt lead late 2nd Q), and those two bs non-calls on Harden 3s stopped our momentum. Then the Klay questionable "Wave Off" was in the first 3 minutes of the 3rd Q.

If your whole premise was that Warriors swung the momentum, the whole point of this thread is the Refs *stopped* our momentum, that we clearly had deep into the 2nd Q. They stopped it *IN* the 2nd quarter....with like a 9pt swing. There was a 6pt swing on one play.

• That 11pt lead at half very easily could be a 16-17pt lead...we had 15ptt lead with 4 minutes left...then
• Refs egregiously missed 6 FTs on back to back, Isolation play, jump shots. Those aren't tough calls to see. Not to mention, the second "miss" led directly a transition 3 (watch the OP vid), that never happens if the foul is called. That one play was a 6pt swing momentum killer.
• Then the 4pt AND-1 that was waved off early in the 3rdQ for foul on the floor...no FTs at all.

 

one could argue that the refs were trying to keep it close for entertainment value - but then the Rockets collapsed behind poor shooting...

we didn't do ourselves any favors - but most were egregious calls...

...but it's the NBA where most fans are more about superstars than actually appreciating the game... and Silver is just slimy...

 

someone mentioned that the nba doesn't want GS to win, they don't care either way. well in which playoff series in our lifetimes have the controversial calls gone against the league's money team?

in just about every major sport dynasties are the big cash cows for professional leagues. and GS is now an international team not unlike real madrid, barca, manchester, etc with casual tag-along fans worldwide buying up merch to show off. let's not pretend the league office hasn't had exactly this in mind all along now.

 

id love that, im not one to typically show off my sports teams accomplishments, but when and if we win, im showing everything off, NBA shows us no respect, and the fans too.

 

I'm just glad Adam Silver wasn't commissioner in the 90s.

 

Lmfao, you just now realized we got cheated?!

 

We were so robbed.

 

My overall point is that I want the Rockets to win a championship, and while the referee'ing was bad and ultimately much worse for the Rockets than the GSW, it wasn't Kings-Lakers 4th quarter Game 6 WCF level ridiculousness and as much to the point my goal is to get to that championship so I think it more useful to focus on how to influence the refs to make less bad calls or non-calls against you. Though I also have more specific comments to the singular game and plays in discussion...

Further thoughts are spoilered below since its long. Including more in depth look and vids of some of the bullet points above.

Spoiler

If you look at the first missed 3 foul call discussed for example, you can see the ref was focused on contact above, then simply missed/didn't see the contact below by Bell at the hip... cause it was very slight, and then Harden supremely embellished it. Embellishing "probably" helps more than hurts over 82 games, but situation-ally like this it can definitely hurt. The refs know this is Harden's move and he embellishes it all the time. Perhaps stop embellishing, and the refs just subconsciously see the play more holistically in the moment, OR, way more importantly, take a better shot or make the shot... the foul, WHILE clearly a foul, did not impact the shot.

On the second play, again a CLEAR missed call... but again, imo, not something intentional or malicious. Just a missed call. Ref on top couldn't see it. Bald guy below should have called it but for whatever reason missed it. On top of that, Nunn talks about whether it would have been a shooting foul or not. Based on what Nunn is saying the now established rule is, he's right, the initial contact is before Harden has 2 hands on the ball. As he notes its SUPREMELY close because Harden is so smart and saw the hand coming in and started to gather the ball, but the initial contact is before he's got the ball in both hands. It just is, with Bell reaching in and touching Harden on the chest. So if I'm going to complain with slow motion help, I'll have to slow mo rewind it to the 100% exact call, which is a non-shooting foul.

Third, they discuss the 4 point and-1. Ronnie Nunn says AGAIN... it was a correct non-shooting foul, based on the rules they've recently instituted. And again, he looks like he's right. The foul initially happens when Harden is DRIBBLING, not shooting. But again, Harden is SO quick about recognizing whats about to happen that he shoots very quick after that so it looks like it should be continuation.

Next play, Nunn is again on the fence. The commentator tries to convince Nunn there was a foul on Draymond on Gordon's wrist even as they're going straight into a super slow mo where its all ball and Draymond never seems to touch EG's wrist.

Then the Jordan Bell moving screen. I think the biggest problem here is Harden's embellishing. Which is why the NBA ref account then tweeted "correct call" because of Harden's embellishing. Nunn goes as far to say heck maybe it was a defensive foul, but recognizing it is a hard play. To me, it's a 1,000% an offensive foul, and probably would have been called as such if Harden just tried to actually go around without embellishing/pulling.

Interestingly, the last play they analyze, which is the one least b****ed about afterwards by Rockets fans, actually SHOULD have been a 3 point shooting foul, because there sneakily isn't any contact until James has the ball in both hands and is going up. It just looks like its a body foul beforehand when its not. HOWEVER, if you really look at it in slow mo, KD is actually getting pushed by Ryan Anderson. It's probably, technically, first a foul on Anderson. DOUBLE HOWEVER... at the first moment of the pick, KD wraps his left arm around Anderson's back as a way to get leverage to get by, even before Anderson than moves/pushes KD into HArden a bit, which is before KD slightly reaches out which is before Harden comes up and draws what at THAT POINT then should have been a shooting foul. So its like wtf? Which is the foul to call there?!?

I get Nunn is a former ref so perhaps a little biased, but what I take out of this, is that when you say ok, let's slow this down, you actually end up with mistakes and non calls and bad calls, but ultimately in ways you weren't even sure about anyway.

----

I guess to the extent I have a point, there's endless contact in basketball that would technically be fouls. What Harden has smartly done is shot when some of that contact happens. And specifically on three point shots, Harden almost to a person has made it super hard on refs to figure out what to call, when and then whether its shooting or not. Which I've said is great, but can be problematic come playoffs. We know and the world knows you get less whistles in the playoffs.

----

My follow-up point is that obviously the losing team is more likely to have these types of fan videos made on them. Surely there are missed calls both ways??

Here's Klay's second foul:
I guess a foul? Super hard to tell. Could have been a non call and not a big deal. You might say, that's definitely a foul, there's contact by the body. Well... true. Here's similar contact that wasn't called on Gerald Green not much later in the first.

Here's Harden fouling Bell with no call:

There are a good 10 examples of Ryan Anderson hand checking Steph at the top of the key.

But we also have other missed calls and non-calls both ways. What about Zaza jumping at Ariza as he shoots a corner three... still on the sidelines but jumping at him - definitely illegal I believe.

----

Which is why I concluded ... INDEED... on the whole the calls went more against the Rockets than the Warriors. And if you get to the point where you're ignoring all the other fouls that may or may not occur throughout a game, off ball, less important, etc. and focus way more on shooting fouls and the timing of the calls or no-calls, its seems more one-sided.

But what happens if Klay doesn't get called for that second foul? What happens if they're calling the game different from the get go?

One thing I'd love to see, is more b****ing on this BBS about how DM refuses to find killer spot up 3 point shooters. Year after year. Despite their clear philosophy of jacking threes. I mean no one knows the exact exact details, but JJ makes it seem like he was 95% there on a Rockets deal until a 4 year deal turned into a 3 year deal. Maybe at the time its just DM's philosophy, he got burned on Ryno, he was tight and didn't want to do it. Maybe a later move like LMBAM doesn't happen if JJ signs (though in retrospect, who cares on that!). And indeed, JJ's playoff 3 point % did AGAIN drop from his regular season one. But you know what might have helped stemmed the tide in that game 7? JJ shooting open threes instead of Ariza, Harden, Tucker and crew. Rockets generated a lot of open looks. Couldn't make ****. I don't want to focus solely on JJ Redick... I'm just pointing out I'm much more pissed in retrospect that they didn't sign JJ or someone similar last offseason... since I know how close they were and how their inability to hit open generated shots down the stretch of the series was the #1 deciding factor, definitely over referee'ing.

 

02' Kings vs Lakers, 05' Mavs vs Rockets, 06' Heat vs Mavs, level of shenanigans

 

Yeah the officiating was about as one sided as I’ve ever seen. The truly infuriating thing is that if the calls went the way they were supposed to, Rockets would likely have blown the game wide open and won by double digits. The poor officiating not only destroyed the Rockets’ momentum but clealy frustrated the players and affected their rythm, hence 27 straight misses from 3. Ultimately, the combo of bad officiating while playing against arguably the greatest roster ever was too much to overcome. It will always be tough to swallow this loss...

 

All poor calls by the officials. There were many of these for/against us throughout the 7 games. It wasn't uneven imo.

This video is the equivalent of a low light reel of James Harden's worst defensive plays. In a 7 game series between the two of the best defensive teams in the league, calls will be missed/mistaken each and every game. You can't then pull those together and act like it only happened to us. Ariza, for example, got away with some egregious play.

We lost the series because Paul went down and the rest of the players couldn't handle the fatigue which evolved into poor shooting. It wasn't rigged as far as I'm concerned and we would beat them if Paul doesn't go down. I was watching the referees like a hawk and remember every one of these plays. It was a logical amount of errors for this stupid officiating system.

 

if the ref assigned to watching was on the other side of the play (right side of Harden).. then yes he could miss that

 

man i hope so! it would make it that much more sweet!

 

If the level of 'unintentional ineptitude' that you've outlined here is true, though, I just want to know how a professional ref crew can be so awful. You have 3 veteran professionals and you can't keep your eyes on the ball? If it's not rigged it's criminally inept.

 

Well again, look at some of the plays in slow motion. In the first one, you can see exactly what happened. The ref was carefully looking at the point of release so didn't see the slight bump by Bell... and once exaggerated more by Harden thought Harden was bs'ing him. I'm not saying ref would have called it if Harden just reacted like a normal slight hit, just the repeated exaggeration plays into thinking.

Or look at the AND-1 4 point play which everyone always references. Should have counted. Should have counted. Well... not, actually not. And that's clear when you slow it down and look at it with the explanation of the call. We might not like it. It might not make any intuitive sense, especially when a dude driving to the basket might get hit on the arm before fully gathering the ball to shoot and often still get the continuation... but that's the rule on three pointers now. He didn't have the ball gathered in both hands to start his shooting motion when he was fouled.

So my contention is two fold:
(i) it wasn't as bad as made out by Rockets fans, though we still definitely got the brunt of it, and
(ii) it wasn't a conspiracy or anything and that being the case we're better off figuring out ways to not be at the mercy on unintentional ineptitude if at all possible in the future.

There's 10 players on the court and tons of action and complex rules. I'm not saying refs shouldn't be held accountable or can't be a lot better, just that **** is going to be missed both ways.

 

2 of the 3 referees do not ball watch

 

Whatever anybody tries to say about the officiating in the WCF of 2018...to me it was the last straw. I'll watch the NBA with passing interest, but never with the passion I had from 1980-2018. NBA basketball is ruined for me now.

 

Another way of restating my exact point, which is that with three people out there, one should be able to tell when a man with the ball is getting karate chopped in a playoff game. That is the ball-watchers job. Seems pretty reasonable to me.

 

Well-reasoned, but I don't buy the excuses in your first paragraph in the scale and frequency that they were occurring - especially given that they were wildly inconsistent in giving benefit of the doubt calls as well.

The fact that Bruce Bowen is 'liking' this post should tell us something.