Ballers
Did you all see the Houston/Dallas game tonight? One word — Awesome. No two — Awesome Rawesome. My prediction that Houston is going to face off against Miami in the Finals is not looking too good, but watching a series of this quality in the first round almost makes me being wrong worth it. Four things stood out to me in the fourth-quarter, or, as they call it in jock/cereal-land, “crunch-time.”
1) Yao Ming missed five straight free throws. This is surprising, considering his 78 reg. season %. I was impressed, though, by his aggression and passion in the second half. I’d never seen him dunk that much in a half. If he could be that aggressive on offense the whole game, most games, he’d be the force everyone feels he’s capable of being. The problem is he’s slow, and Avery Johnson has exploited the hell out of this by playing small-ball against him. In the playoffs, it’s normal for him to get into foul trouble early and not be able to play extended minutes, meaning he can’t exploit shorter defenders on the other end. I’m not sure how Van Gundy can remedy this — maybe try a zone next game for a little while. Those Mavs are just so damn quick…
The refs sucked, especially when it counted the most. Here’s a run-down of their fourth-quarter, pin-striped sins:
1) Dirk drives on T-Mac baseline. T-Mac barely touches his hip on the dribble and doesn’t even touch him on the shot. A phantom foul is called.
2) Michael Finley obviously comes in from out-of-bounds to strip Jon Barry of the ball. Stackhouse gets it and is fouled. The problem is this coming-in-from-out-of-bounds-thing is illegal, and Houston should have gotten the ball. Stackhouse nails two liberal ones.
3) Up three, Michael Finley gets the ball in the corner and Bowen converges on him, trying to force a pass. He doesn’t touch Finley but is called for the foul anyway, b/c the ref “anticipated” what he was supposedly going to happen anyway. It didn’t hurt the Rockets b/c Finley missed one anyway, but it’s still poor officiating.
Better officiating and this game would have been one of the ages. We’re talking at LEAST 8 overtimes.
The game was awesome, and I still feel like if Houston can get past the pesky Mavs, they’ll be in the finals.
I’ve been meaning to blog about this, but it seems like to me, of the three major sports, the refereeing in basketball is the least mechanical and most arbitrary. Of course, I’m not saying that there isn’t a lot of room for disagreement regarding what is a strike and what is a 5 or 15 yard face-mask, but I’ve been watching basketball for more than a decade and I still don’t even know the definition of a foul.
Seriously, what is it? Excessive contact? Does it matter who initiates the contact? Is there no threshold level, but a relative difference between a foul and non-foul? Does this relative difference vary per game? Is good refereeing essentially calling arbitrary fouls but calling them consistently and evenly on both teams throughout the course of the game? If so, is there fixed defintion of a foul? (I’m begining to sound like my casebooks.)
More than football (leaving aside the infamous “tuck” call that handed the Pats the AFC championship ‘gainst the deserving Raiders in ‘02) and baseball, it seems to me that referees in basketball have the biggest impact on the outcome of the competititon, which means in this sense it’s not a far cry from figure skating. Even so, it’s my favorite sport (basketball that is).