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http://www.charlotte.com/bobcats/story/446639.html

Based on feedback from the NBA, the Bobcats won't file a protest concerning the basket-interference call against Emeka Okafor in Saturday's loss to Detroit.

Thoughts?

The call might have stung, but it was the right call. Bobcats had no grounds to protest it. Accept it and move on. Bobcats are playing really well, despite a bad coach. Keep up the momentum and try to squeeze into the playoffs.

Liqourish wrote:The call might have stung, but it was the right call. Bobcats had no grounds to protest it. Accept it and move on. Bobcats are playing really well, despite a bad coach. Keep up the momentum and try to squeeze into the playoffs.

Watch any given game and the number of alley oops that are completed and regarded as legal and there are grounds.

It might have been "by the books," but there are a lot of calls that don't get called in our favor, yet are "by the books."

Maybe the Anthony travel call was a makeup for it. Kinda like him, I figured they wouldn't call a travel at the end of the game like that, even though it is "by the books." Even though his travel was pretty blatent.

Hey, I'm all for it if the league starts calling every play "by the books" when it comes to us and whatever team we are playing. Because (1) we almost never get the benefit of any calls, so it wouldn't hurt us anyway, and (2) we've lost FAR more games due to no-calls on "by the books" plays than we've won, so I'm all for it.

But of course, that won't happen.

By the way, the same people that are arguing it was a "good call, let it go" are the same ones that will defend superstars for getting away with push offs and carries in the final seconds, with excuses like "refs can't decide the game by calls like that."

i still would have liked to have seen the team fight the league on this one, even if they knew they had no chance to win. sometimes you stick up for your team even though you know its a lost cause.

That's my thoughts Fats. With the league recently going through damage control with the refs you know they are going to support them all the way and getting them to admit they were wrong would be near impossible but it would have at least been nice to go through the motions so that they knew we were unhappy with it and refuse to be the leagues whipping boys'.

Thank God we're not protesting that. Quite frankly I find it embarrassing our coach would blame that loss on the officials. Sam needs to start worrying about the things he can control as opposed to what he can't. I've never once heard him complain to the media about a players poor play. But now, Sam has set the tone to his players thats it's ok to blame others for your own poor play. All great coaches would have pointed to our own play as the reason we lost, not the officials.

And seriously, that final play was INCONCLUSIVE. There is no clear cut vantage point that shows the ball was not in the cylinder.


Also, Carmelo did travel. He admitted it after the game. Now THAT is how you take responsibility for a loss.

It's about more than just that one call Bowens. It's about a history of being snubbed and not respected. If we continue to allow people to walk on us then people will walk on us.

You have to make a stand or continue to be a door mat.

BigSlam wrote:It's about more than just that one call Bowens. It's about a history of being snubbed and not respected. If we continue to allow people to walk on us then people will walk on us.

You have to make a stand or continue to be a door mat.

Sam Vincent has been head coach in the NBA for 37 games. He has no history and threatening to protest a call that could have gone either way, is not going to endear him to officials around the league.

He should have just bit his lip and said, we need to play better as a team in order for us not to be put into a situation where a tough call by the officials could decide the outcome of a game.


I like what Flip Saunders said after his team won. He blamed the almost loss on his teams poor decision making in choosing to take so many threes. Then he called out Richard Hamilton and cracked a joke about him, saying he looked like he was at the state fair trying to win a stuffed animal.

Understand?

Bowens wrote:-= original quote snipped =-
Understand?

Completely - and I agree that if you are relying on one call to determine if you win or lose a game, then you probably didn't play well enough to win any way............BUT, when there is a history of us being shafted by the officials and by the League, you have to draw a line in the sand and say "enough is enough".

And it doesn't matter if V has been here for 25 years or 25 seconds. He represents us as a franchise, not as an individual. If anything him making a stand and being fairly new might have made the brass sit up and take notice.

Like I said, it's about more than just that call and it's not crying over spilt milk. It's a chance to say "we wont be silenced any more"

The way I see it, the league already has admitted it was a shady call by not fining Vincent for complaining about it. Unfortunately for us, the standard of review is not in our favor since goaltending is a "judgment call." The league is never going to overturn a judgment call like goaltending whereas they will overturn a scoring error like in the Hawks-Heat game that is clearly an error no matter whose eyes you look through. Since the league knows the call was most likely bogus, but they can't overturn it, they are going to let Vincent get away with complaining, but not give us any relief. The lawyer in me sees this as a minor victory, whereas the fan in me knows I still got screwed.

SCBobcat wrote:The lawyer in me sees this as a minor victory, whereas the fan in me knows I still got screwed.

That's a pretty decent compromise and way to look at it I guess SCB.

I like that Vincent backed his players...because THEY felt they got screwed and he needs opportunities to "be one" with the guys. This is part of developing a cohesiveness, and as Slam pointed out to me earlier it was just last week it was looking like Vincent had "lost" some of the players.

That being said, it was a judgement call and there's no way we'd have gotten any satisfaction.

In short, I'm pretty pleased with how the "after" went down overall. I see Bowens point, but in our circumstance I think it did more good than harm.

No, you guys are missing the point. It's not about the call or how many times you feel we've been shafted by the refs. ALL teams get bad calls during the course of the season. Tommy Heinson (Celtics announcer) was complaining all game long when we played them that the Bobcats were getting every call and the C's were getting screwed. Everything tends to even out over the course of the season. No sense in worrying about things you cannot control.

But more importantly, this is about our team. It's about Sam Vincent holding our team accountable for the 11 missed free throws during the game. THAT should have been the first words out of his mouth. The Pistons WON and yet their coach was criticizing their players for poor shot selection. If Sam feels he needs to coddle his players because they can't take criticism, then either we need new players or we need a new coach who isn't afraid to challenge the team.

Too much coddling going on in Charlotte.

The difference though is Bowens, that Flip can get annoyed about Rip jacking up three's because he doesn't have to worry about a BS call like the ones that we have to continually put up with.

I see what you are saying, I really do, but you can't discount the fact that we have been the red headed step child who is forced to live under the stairs for years now.

There has been a history of it.

I like that V got angry enough that our badly undermaned team who played their nuts off against a better team only to have the outcome decided for them that he stood for what he thought was right.

Like Spectre said, it did more good than harm.

We don't know how much Vincent has been riding the players for screwing up. I know you think "fans" (those dratted fans again!) don't hold them accountable, but that's a different thing entirely.

It certainly looked like Vincent was on the verge of having a mass revolt not so very long ago...Bonnell insinuated there were problems (somewhat gleefully I thought) and from the few comments we got from Mek/Crash/JSwish I'd agree. Instead of bashing them for screwing up maybe he instead used it in a different way. It cost us nothing...but very well could have brought more comraderie into the mix.*

Ultimately I think all would agree; it should never come down to where the refs can decide the game on a call. Getting into that position was our fault. If Vincent used the episode to his advantage where it might help the team...then IMO that's a good thing.

*The above assumes that Vincent is smart enough to use reverse psychology. This assumption goes against everything else we've witnessed to date...but there's always a chance someone has come out with "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Out-thinking Professional Athletes".