Playoffs 2017: WC First Round - Houston Rockets (3) vs Oklahoma City Thunder (6)

[NaturalThunder]

On the whole Harden/Lou ref-baiting on 3P attempts thing...

It's not the main reason we lost games four and five, but there were crucial moments in both games where both Harden and Lou baited the refs into calling, at best, a highly questionable foul on a 3-point attempt. In at least one instance (Harden's in game 5) it was a downright disgraceful and embarrassingly terrible call. That's six points in both games that came at crucial junctures of the game in the second half.

It's not the biggest/main reason we lost. That'd be the whole can't put Westbrook on the bench or we'll get outscored by 10-15 points in 2-3 minutes thing, but the 3P attempt refbaiting by Harden and Lou throughout the series was also harmful to our chances at winning the series. Sadly, for us, the refs fell for it over and over and over again. Even when Harden threw his non-shooting hand/arm up under one of our players and flailed to make it look like there was contact, or even when Harden jumped forwarded and delivered a shoulder blow into Roberson to make it look like there was contact, the refs still fell for it.

[Thundershock88]

The last 3 point foul they called on Abrines was absolutely atrocious. Evaporated our lead like that.

[Pillendreher]

On the whole Harden/Lou ref-baiting on 3P attempts thing...

It's not the main reason we lost games four and five, but there were crucial moments in both games where both Harden and Lou baited the refs into calling, at best, a highly questionable foul on a 3-point attempt. In at least one instance (Harden's in game 5) it was a downright disgraceful and embarrassingly terrible call. That's six points in both games that came at crucial junctures of the game in the second half.

It's not the biggest/main reason we lost. That'd be the whole can't put Westbrook on the bench or we'll get outscored by 10-15 points in 2-3 minutes thing, but the 3P attempt refbaiting by Harden and Lou throughout the series was also harmful to our chances at winning the series. Sadly, for us, the refs fell for it over and over and over again. Even when Harden threw his non-shooting hand/arm up under one of our players and flailed to make it look like there was contact, or even when Harden jumped forwarded and delivered a shoulder blow into Roberson to make it look like there was contact, the refs still fell for it.

When you get 49 FTs over 5 games on 3pt shots, it sure as hell makes a difference.

[NaturalThunder]

The last 3 point foul they called on Abrines was absolutely atrocious. Evaporated our lead like that.

Yep. On the replay it didn't look like Abrines even touched Lou. That one was bad but not as awful as Harden blatantly jumping into the defender, shoulder first, and flinging up a prayer getting three FTs for it.

And then Lou came down on Houston's next possession, caught the ball 30-35 feet from the basket with a defender on top of him, thought about shooting a three for a few seconds, then decided to shoot the standstill three from 30-feet out and drained it. Six of the points Houston scored in that 2-minute stretch to start the fourth with Russ was on the bench came from Lou Williams being rewarded three BS FTs and hitting a semi-fluky three. Of course our bench still wasn't scoring, so it didn't really matter, but I don't think the 10 point swing with Russ on the bench was quite as terrible as it looks if you provide proper context. Don't get me wrong, it's still really bad, but not catastrophically bad.