Why so few foul shots?

[nyhuskyfan]

The Lakers got into the bonus at the 6:15 mark of the the third quarter on a soft hand checking foul. These were their possessions the rest of the quarter:

5:43: Gasol makes dunk (Odom assisted on a high-low set, Gasol's dunk was uncontested)
5:05: Bryant makes 17 footer (fadeaway over PJ Brown)
4:31: Gasol makes 15 footer (uncontested off Bryant feed when C's doubled)
3:55: Radmanovic misses 22 footer
3:20: Radmanovic bad pass (horrible pass - threw the ball to nobody in particular)
2:42: Bryant misses 19 footer
2:14: Bryant misses 25-foot 3-pointer
1:54: Walton misses 20 footer
1:25: Bryant bad pass (led to fast break and Powe alley-oop from Rondo)
1:07: Odom offensive foul (obvious call - but only time they tried to attack the basket)
0:40: Vujacic bad pass (tried to drive and dish - looked awkward doing it)
0:23: Vujacic makes 19-footer (fadeaway).

They got the ball inside twice - once was an uncontested dunk and the other was an obvious charge.


In the fourth, the Lakers had three uncontested dunks (two alley-oops to Turiaf and the Radmanovic fast break). Only once did they attack the basket (Kobe missed on an airball leaning in from behind the basket and Radmanovic followed). They took 13 three-pointers and two long two-pointers. Kobe hit two running jumpers in the final two minutes. And they got six foul shots (two on a gift call after Powe took the ball out of Fisher's hands - two on a little reach in in the final minute).

How the hell do you expect to get to the line?

[MyInsatiableOne]

^^Thank you very much. You don't get to the line when you are shotting 10-20 ft jumpers ALL NIGHT.

[Kefa461]

The Lakers got into the bonus at the 6:15 mark of the the third quarter on a soft hand checking foul. These were their possessions the rest of the quarter:

5:43: Gasol makes dunk (Odom assisted on a high-low set, Gasol's dunk was uncontested)
5:05: Bryant makes 17 footer (fadeaway over PJ Brown)
4:31: Gasol makes 15 footer (uncontested off Bryant feed when C's doubled)
3:55: Radmanovic misses 22 footer
3:20: Radmanovic bad pass (horrible pass - threw the ball to nobody in particular)
2:42: Bryant misses 19 footer
2:14: Bryant misses 25-foot 3-pointer
1:54: Walton misses 20 footer
1:25: Bryant bad pass (led to fast break and Powe alley-oop from Rondo)
1:07: Odom offensive foul (obvious call - but only time they tried to attack the basket)
0:40: Vujacic bad pass (tried to drive and dish - looked awkward doing it)
0:23: Vujacic makes 19-footer (fadeaway).

They got the ball inside twice - once was an uncontested dunk and the other was an obvious charge.


In the fourth, the Lakers had three uncontested dunks (two alley-oops to Turiaf and the Radmanovic fast break). Only once did they attack the basket (Kobe missed on an airball leaning in from behind the basket and Radmanovic followed). They took 13 three-pointers and two long two-pointers. Kobe hit two running jumpers in the final two minutes. And they got six foul shots (two on a gift call after Powe took the ball out of Fisher's hands - two on a little reach in in the final minute).

How the hell do you expect to get to the line?

They deserve to be put on the line because they are Lakers that's why.....

[bruno sundov]

Even KB24 isn't making it all the way to the rim. He is doing that baseline jumper fade away when he gets close. He really isn't making a high%of them.

[sam_I_am]

The play that Kobe got a technical when he whined about a no call would have been the wussiest foul call of the playoffs. There really was not fould there.

The one play that he got jobbed on was when they threw an alley oop to him and P2 grabbed is arm. P2 did do it quickly and may have just got a way with one but that was a bad no call.

However, on next play P2 fakes a 3 and then draws contact and nails 3 and they call travel. Was it? Maybe. Next play Fisher gets owned by Powe who grabs ball and pulls it twisting Fisher's body around. It was clean and they call foul on Powe.

What about Radmanovich's steal and layup where he took 5 steps - worst travel no call I have ever seen.

The officials were bad. But the Lakers played cottage cheese defense and Powe earned every foul he got. Not one was questionable. He attacked the rim with passion and the Laker big men never got in his way and tried to reach at ball and slap at him. That is pussy - "cat" defense and the Lakers rightfully got punished for it. Powe attacked the rim more than the entire Laker roster (apart from Kobe) combined.

A late second round pick PF who was a bit role player on last years horrendous Celtic team and plays even less this year dribbled the length of the court down the middle and dunked even though all 5 Lakers were back on defense. That is why the Lakers got no fouls.

[Don Ford]

Why so few fouls is actually a very good question. Pulled this from another board.

"The problem was that the Lakers weren't playing significantly less aggressively than the Celtics, and still got hosed. It's one thing to see teams get the short end of the stick and retreat into a shell. The Lakers, though, continued to go to the rack. Check the shot charts for Lamar Odom and Pau Gasol:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/shotchart ... =280608002

Pretty much every shot is in the paint or just outside it - between the two of them, they took 23 shots. 18 of them were within 5 feet of the hoop. They shot 1 foul between them. Look at the comparable shot chart for KG - 2 shots in the paint. 4 free throws. There's getting hosed, and then there's inexplicable.

Don't like ESPN? How about CBS: http://www.sportsline.com/nba/gamecente ... 08_LAL@BOS

30 shots by LA were layups or dunks. Boston had 18. Let's amend that somewhat by noting that the Celtics were the recipients of a number of 2-shot shooting fouls. They were credited with SEVENTEEN shooting fouls - LA got THREE. If we were to give every one of Boston's 2-shot fouls to the Celtics as a 'layup' or 'dunk' attempt (they had 14), that gives them 32 shots at the rim. Both of LA's two-shot attempts were on layups, I believe (one by Fisher, one by Bryant). That gives LA 32 shots at the rim. Gasol and Odom had 16 of them, and received, again, one foul shot for their troubles.

I'll reiterate simply because it bears repeating: Exactly even at the rim in shot attempts. Seventeen shooting fouls to three. On a night when the two teams took the exact same number of shots at the rim. That's not bad, that's borderline absurd. You pretend like the officiating got better in the second half? First half: 19-2, Boston. Second half: 19-8, Boston. Oh good, the Lakers got 6 extra free throws. "Fouls at the end of the game" don't hold water, because LA only fouled once on Posey - let's take that out. 17-8 in the second half, despite long stretches that saw LA play more at being matadors than at defenders because they were trying to avoid getting called for fouls!

I don't expect LA necessarily be -ahead- in free throws. But one expects them to be within, oh, I don't know, twenty? Fifteen too much to ask, perhaps? You're calling out Odom - maybe he struggled because every time he tried to go in the lane, he got hammered or called for an offensive foul? The same is true of Gasol, who admittedly allowed the officiating to take him out of the game - but it took him out of the game because it was so egregiously bad that he attempted 11 shots right in the paint amidst a significant amount of contact, and was rewarded with one foul shot.

Lost in all of this is the fact that Kobe actually played really well against the "Kobe stopper" Boston defense. 30 points on 23 shots is plenty efficient (that's just as efficient as 39 points on 30 shots, which was how he played in game 5 against the Spurs, when everybody couldn't stop talking about how well he played). He tossed in 8 assists to boot. All this despite being saddled with 3 fouls early, all of which were on the floor. I don't know that being "MVP" is worth the 20 or so FTAs it seemed to be against Utah, but, really, Kobe gets called for ticky-tack stuff 3x in the first half while Leon Powe spends his first 10 minutes in the game shoving Pau Gasol half into the stanchion every time down the court!

The 'comeback' almost buries the story more than it should, because the fact is that the officiating killed the Lakers. It pulled Kobe out of the game early, and as soon as he left the early LA lead evaporated (Lakers were up by 1 when he left, were down by 8 when he returned). When he got his 3rd on yet another nonsense call (I was unaware that being shoved into Paul Pierce by PJ Brown was considered a foul, but hey, I'm not an NBA ref - on the flipside, I can see better than Stevie Wonder, which seems to be something they all lack), the Celtics extended a 7-point lead to 12 at the half. And you're fooling yourself if you don't think that the tight officiating (at the Lakers' end, and ONLY at the Lakers' end, for the 2nd quarter) didn't affect how LA played defense for the remainder of the game"

The Celtics were the more agressive team but only slightly and certainly not enough to warrant a 38 to 10 FT disparity. Funny thing is that I keep seeing all of the comments about Garnett's rebound dunk over Gasol in game 1 but haven't seen any of you guys say a thing about the "soft euro" Gasol taking your boy Garnett to the rack and dunking right over the top of him. Good luck when things even out in LA.

[nyhuskyfan]

Lamar Odom made two tip-ins on offensive rebounds without even bringing the ball down (not the kind of play you usually get a foul on, but it looks in the stats the same as a play when Powe powers the ball up). He missed two shots around the basket - one was blocked cleanly by KG (early in the third quarter). The other was very early and I don't remember the play. His other misses were on jump shots. I don't see where Odom earned any foul shots. His charge in the third was an obvious call.

Gasol was aggressive starting the game - he was 5-5 and should have had an additional 'and one' in the second quarter on the alley-oop (if he actually took some body contact before falling down he might have sold the call a little better, but either way Garnett did get him on the forearm so it should have been called). In the second half he didn't come close to earning any foul shots - he got the ball inside to start the second half and put up a soft hook and missed. He made an uncontested dunk and an uncontested 15-footer midway through the third and did not take another shot the rest of the night. If the Lakers kept pounding the ball inside to him, I'm sure he would have been on the line. He was extremely effective, but the Lakers chose not to utilize him.

In the whole second half, I can really only come up with one play that could have been a shooting foul that wasn't called. Radmanovic had a follow on a Kobe airball from in close and took a little bump low, so that could have been an and one. Pierce should have been called for a foul on the floor that would have negated the lefty runner from Kobe, but on the next possession, Kobe wrapped both arms around Pierce while he was dribbling which led to the turnover and Vujacic three-pointer. Other than that, the only way the Lakers could hope for fouls was hand checking or off the ball. Given that there was almost no off the ball movement once the triangle was put in the closet for the night, there wasn't really much the Lakers did to even try to draw fouls.

As for Kobe's fouls - he thought he could send a message with a little elbow and got nailed for it. Instead of whining about the refs, you should be pissed at your guy for taking a stupid elbowing foul and hurting his team. Maybe that 10-0 bench run to start the second quarter doesn't happen if Kobe had kept himself on the floor. Kobe was great in the last five minutes. Sometimes its easy to play when you're way behind - you can just chuck wth no conscience.

The first half foul shot discrepancy should have been closer than 19-2. The officials were trying to make up for it, putting the Lakers in the bonus less than five minutes into the third quarter and giving Kobe a soft two foul shots on a hand checking call with 6:15 left in the third. But you see above what you did with it. You went away from the triangle and went to Kobe getting high screens and shooting fallaways or kicking out to people for long jumpers. The lead was nine and it ballooned up to 22 in no time as LA missed jumpers and Powe and PJ Brown had a lay-up line (mixed in with a Ray Allen three-pointer that occurred when Kobe was too busy bitching at the refs to get back on defense - so Allen buried a three in the corner as Odom was slow to contest).

[Gomes3PC]

The Lakers did get jobbed on a few calls in the first half. After seeing the referee love displayed for Lebron James in Rd 2 though, NOBODY will be sending condolences cards to Lakers fans from Boston. Kobe and all the Lakers in general were not working to draw contact, particularly in the 2nd half. The only guy I thought deserving of more FTs were Gasol, because he was taking it right at KG and I think the DPOY got a little benefit of the doubt on the body he was giving Pau. But is that a HUGE surprise? He's a superstar, at home.

I think the most shocking thing to me is that as the 'veteran' team with Kobe and Fisher leading the way, the Lakers seemed to crumble VERY quickly when the calls weren't going their way. They were the team who had 4 road playoff wins coming in, so you'd think they'd get over the lack of whistles. It was only when they and the Celtics thought it was over and they finally let the bad calls go when they got back in it. Had they just shaken it off in the 2nd instead of the 4th, they'd have made it the game it became with 1:00 left.

At Staples, expect Kobe to get the treatment Garnett did. KG earned some noncalls on D through his DPOY status at home. Kobe will earn some ticky tack calls via his MVP status at home. The only way a team wins on the road in this series is if they forget the way fouls are called and just play. These teams are good enough to win in a variety of ways, and if they can't do that they don't deserve the rings.

[Don Ford]

These teams are good enough to win in a variety of ways, and if they can't do that they don't deserve the rings.

Not sure if I completely agree with what you said about the Lakers crumbling because the calls going against them, mostly because it's very difficult to get into any kind of offensive flow when the other team is constantly going to the line. But I definitely agree 100% with your last comment that if you want to win a championship you have to find a way to win despite things like bad calls, playing on the road, injuries, momentum or whatever is going against you. The Lakers haven't done it yet, hopefully they can turn it around in LA.

[Ed Pinkney]

A few points:

The Celtics got some shockers called on them early on and I remember thinking to myself here we go. Things did change pretty quickly though and the Lakers did get a rough deal at times.

Get ready for the reversal for the games in LA. The refs are likely to even it up and the Celts need to be prepared that they aren't going to get many calls and the Lakers will probably shoot a few free throws.

Despite the ref's I thought this little quote from JA Adande was interesing:


"Not even the extended makeup calls throughout the second half evened the balance in the Lakers' minds. There was an unnecessary foul on Allen, a questionable offensive foul on Rajon Rondo and Lamar Odom rode P.J. Brown out of bounds on a rebound attempt with no call.

Most blatant of all, Vladimir Radmanovic took so many steps, he looked like he was training for the Boston Marathon when he went in for the breakaway dunk that cut the Celtics' lead to four.

The Lakers had their breaks, too, and couldn't capitalize."