Officiating in the NBA

[Primetime23]

Definitely good to see Toronto media going off on the refs but Blair just said the ref crew we have tonight favours the home team. Shouldn't be so lop sided tonight. PUT YOUR MONEY ON THE RAPS MONEY LINE TONIGHT!! LOL

Raps are almost 2 to 1 favourites

[wow09]

Wow..Jeff Blair is going off now..I can't believe they're talking about this on 590

I was suprised as well. Honestly though I think he did it with a purpose. Puts pressure on the league when you are talking about it on game day and making a big deal of it. If you are calling them out on it do they still go through with it? Thats what I think he did it for anyways...

[Son Goku 25]

Game #1 was officiated fine. FT's attempts were almost identical.

Raps didn't deserve to win.

Again, it's not about FT totals but when the fouls are called.

No fouls in the 4Q by Brooklyn? Okaaaaayyyy. Sure.

Exactly, its about the timing which changes the momentum. I'm not blaming the refs as I didn't watch the game but I think every Raptor fan knows how biased they are against us, I don't even need to watch the game to realize there probably was bias against the raps vs a vet team like the vets.

[OakleyDokely]

Listen, there were a lot of games this year where the Raptors were completely jobbed. This game wasn't one of those games.

[wow09]

Recap?

These have been the best officiated playoffs I've ever seen to be honest.

You definitely missed the Houston/Portland game then.... terrible for both teams

[Steelo Green]

Did people not watch the game? We turned it over 19 times and Demar took vine headed shots, Val missed gimmes although playing well and our offense had 0 flow.

In the fourth about 4 mins left, Raps up 1, Livingston hits a J to take the lead, Pierce hit the 3, the fade away. They were simply hitting shots, we weren't. Did Vasquez get fouled when he ran on a break for a ill advised 3??

Yes a few calls missed on both sides but we also played the foul game at the end which is why they had more FTs at the end.

Let's stop playing this card, it's tiresome.

We played like crap, they played better, end of story.

[Steelo Green]

Recap?

These have been the best officiated playoffs I've ever seen to be honest.

You definitely missed the Houston/Portland game then.... terrible for both teams

I'm not gonna sit and point to one game that there was a mistake, and one they admitted to in the playoffs which has never been done before.

In years past, the NBA has tried to cater to teams with stars, but look now, how many road teams won game 1? This has to be a record.

It is never going to be perfect but at least some parity in the sport is there.

[Spacing]

Definitely good to see Toronto media going off on the refs but Blair just said the ref crew we have tonight favours the home team. Shouldn't be so lop sided tonight. PUT YOUR MONEY ON THE RAPS MONEY LINE TONIGHT!! LOL

Raps are almost 2 to 1 favourites

ML is at -200. Spread -4.5(-117).

Net +4.5 (+100)
Nets +1.5 (+150)
Nets +7.5(-166)

Looks like Vegas thinks Raps cover -4.5 but don't win by more than 7.

Personally, I like them for the cover on the spread.

[OakleyDokely]

Up until the last couple minutes, I think the Raptors were only called for 2 or 3 fouls in the 4th when it was close game.

The refs let the two teams play in the 4th, which is a good thing.

Lets save our hate for the refs for when they truly screw us over.

[JD143726]

I do think Adam Silver is a more honest guy and less slimy than David Stern.*

*I reserve the right to change my opinion on a possession-by-possession basis

GO RAPTORS

[ghuytro]

Listen, there were a lot of games this year where the Raptors were completely jobbed. This game wasn't one of those games.

Here's the analogy I like to use.

A team requires a set of conditions to allow them to get a win - it's like having good soil into which you plant your effort, lineups, play calling etc.

The way that refs call a game - particularly down the stretch - greatly impacts the conditions available to you.

Having no fouls called against you in the 4th quarter? Well guess what, now you have a Toronto team that has been turning the ball over and taking tough shots all game, and now you get to ratchet up your defense - hand checking, bumping in the lane, pushing rebounders on loose balls (KG on Jonas) - and seal up the win.

You can't tell me that the refs didn't help the Nets down the stretch with the way they were calling the game. The created the best possible conditions for them to close out the game given how they had been playing all game long.

[Clementine9]

Im not going to blame the refs when we had so many turnovers, Demar was inefficient, Amir was injured, we shot terrible from 3 (so did BKN), Jonas missed a few bunnies, etc etc.

Again, people keep bringing up the turnovers as though this is an argument killer. Of course a bunch of those can be blamed only on the Raptors. But when Ross applies perimeter pressure similar to the level Brooklyn did, he gets called for fouls and gets taken out of the game. Williams got an offensive foul call for throwing himself on the ground and holding his face when he ran into Lowry while trying to intercept a pass (applying perimeter pressure). Jonas had a turnover where he had the ball near the baseline and one of the Nets (may have been Anderson) just swiped down across his arms and knocked the ball out of his hands. Jonas had another turnover after Demar blocked Johnson's shot and he went to save the ball from going out of bounds. Garnett gave him a shove to make sure he'd go out.

Turnovers are completely related to how the game is called when one team is allowed a certain level of contact and the other team isn't.

Again, I haven't done a tally or really taken a look at how the calls went overall so I'm not taking sides. But let's not dismiss people's arguments with weak retorts like the FT attempts were even or we just had too many turnovers, as though those are somehow unrelated to bad refereeing and objective measurements of a team's performance regardless of the refs.

[wow09]

Recap?

These have been the best officiated playoffs I've ever seen to be honest.

You definitely missed the Houston/Portland game then.... terrible for both teams

I'm not gonna sit and point to one game that there was a mistake, and one they admitted to in the playoffs which has never been done before.

In years past, the NBA has tried to cater to teams with stars, but look now, how many road teams won game 1? This has to be a record.

It is never going to be perfect but at least some parity in the sport is there.

I agree the parity this year is good to see. But that game was WAY more then 1 mistake. If I am a portland fan I am furius that they adimtted that 1 mistake and left out all the crap that happened to Portland. They were getting the shaft all game. Alrdige fouled out for setting a screen....

[OhMyBosh]

Game #1 was officiated fine. FT's attempts were almost identical.

Raps didn't deserve to win.

I agree the officiating was fine.

I agree the Raptors didn't deserve to win that game.

I completely disagree with looking at FT attempts as any indication of a fairly-officiated game. It's irrelevant and holds no weight in whether or not a game was one-sided.

[JustWin]

If you think the reffing was bad, wait till we play in Brooklyn...

[J-Roc]

We need to come to terms with whether we truly believe there's a conspiracy vs the Raps. If there is, there is no point following this team. If not, then stop it.

Cathal Kelly had an article today that's also a disservice to the game and makes puckheads think the NBA is a farce, with talk of star calls and the Raps not getting a fair shake. This just isn't good for the game to have this as a key conversation point.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/b ... e18088734/

The refs aren’t crooked, but they’re human. They know how things work. They know what’s good for the brand. If they can help without crossing an internal ethical line, history has proven they will.

[OakleyDokely]

The NBA refs suck overall. They have a culture of giving star/vet calls, whether fouls occured or not. It's a league wide problem which the NBA has no intention of fixing.

The Raptors are going to be at a disadvantage against the Nets and there's nothing we can really do.

In terms of what I was expecting, Game #1 wasn't too bad, and it the officiating wasn't the reason the Raps lost in my opinion.

[Steelo Green]

Im not going to blame the refs when we had so many turnovers, Demar was inefficient, Amir was injured, we shot terrible from 3 (so did BKN), Jonas missed a few bunnies, etc etc.

Again, people keep bringing up the turnovers as though this is an argument killer. Of course a bunch of those can be blamed only on the Raptors. But when Ross applies perimeter pressure similar to the level Brooklyn did, he gets called for fouls and gets taken out of the game. Williams got an offensive foul call for throwing himself on the ground and holding his face when he ran into Lowry while trying to intercept a pass (applying perimeter pressure). Jonas had a turnover where he had the ball near the baseline and one of the Nets (may have been Anderson) just swiped down across his arms and knocked the ball out of his hands. Jonas had another turnover after Demar blocked Johnson's shot and he went to save the ball from going out of bounds. Garnett gave him a shove to make sure he'd go out.

Turnovers are completely related to how the game is called when one team is allowed a certain level of contact and the other team isn't.

Again, I haven't done a tally or really taken a look at how the calls went overall so I'm not taking sides. But let's not dismiss people's arguments with weak retorts like the FT attempts were even or we just had too many turnovers, as though those are somehow unrelated to bad refereeing and objective measurements of a team's performance regardless of the refs.

You have to work the argument both ways.

Vasquez took a three and got fouled, even though that play could be seen as a no call because he stuck his legs out. the charge Lowry took yesterday was a no call in the OKC game, Demar did his usual no space just going to throw it up and got to the line that way.

There were mistakes both ways but to me they are negligible.

[wow09]

We need to come to terms with whether we truly believe there's a conspiracy vs the Raps. If there is, there is no point following this team. If not, then stop it.

Cathal Kelly had an article today that's also a disservice to the game and makes puckheads think the NBA is a farce, with talk of star calls and the Raps not getting a fair shake. This just isn't good for the game to have this as a key conversation point.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/b ... e18088734/

The refs aren’t crooked, but they’re human. They know how things work. They know what’s good for the brand. If they can help without crossing an internal ethical line, history has proven they will.

The NBA is a farce though. If we just sweep it under the rug nothing will change

[Clementine9]

You have to work the argument both ways.

Vasquez took a three and got fouled, even though that play could be seen as a no call because he stuck his legs out. the charge Lowry took yesterday was a no call in the OKC game, Demar did his usual no space just going to throw it up and got to the line that way.

There were mistakes both ways but to me they are negligible.

Which is an argument I can start to get behind. I just don't like these broad statements about turnovers and free throws when those are totally related to how referees are calling the game (even if they're even) and which neglect the important factor of the timing of the calls, number of fouls a player has, and that sort of thing.