Jd- wrote:ranger wrote:Miami is good because of the calls, it's one of the big reasons why they are successful, Lebron and Wade get to the line so much time that it's vital for their game, so they kind of HAVE to get those super-star ref calls.
All known players that go to the rim are going to get calls (which includes the Spurs).
And believe me, I get that, you get that, and I'm sure guys like ranger get that too. I think what most people are sick of is how the NBA and its referees still like to pretend that they don't do it whatsoever at any point. And of course they can't admit that, but it's still very frustrating if you're a fan of a certain team and a game is essentially decided on an all-star whacking someone else in the face and getting away with it. David Stern's whole "oh our referees are the highest quality and we review the candidates every year" is a heaping pile of bull and most anyone will tell you that. If the guy has been around forever, no matter how much of a problem he has handling his own ego (Joey Crawford and Steve Javie when he was still a referee are the most notorious examples of referees who let their egos get in the way) he's going to get away with what he does.
When you have things like Dwayne Wade smacking Rondo in the face during a lay-up attempt and you're not calling it because frankly, it's Dwayne Wade, that's when there's problems. And then of course there's the infamous Danny Crawford fiasco in game one. It just makes the league look so bush league to an outsider wanting to watch basketball.
I try not to blame the referees for a game because frankly calling a basketball game is extremely hard in itself, but there are certain things that are just inexcusable, and NBA referees have made a LOT of inexcusably bad calls for every single team in this league the entire year, including even last season. It's to the point where if I were David Stern I would really seriously consider trying to figure out SOMETHING to do this off-season, because it's only going to get worse from here. Instill an extra replay system like what the NHL does with its officiating where there's extra eyes looking on from other spots, do SOMETHING, because honestly something needs to be done. I've been watching basketball with an extensive, close interest since the Michael Jordan years during the 2nd Bulls-era, and I haven't seen officiating as silly-bad as I have seen in the past few years.
I feel for Rondo. I imagine if Pierce hadn't fouled out (and, you know, if one of the refs would've called that call where Wade smacked the poor guy in the fuggin' head) the game would've went a whole lot differently for Boston. Miami certainly did a piss-poor job of trying to close out the game in regulation with all of that free-throw clanking. And that second missed jumper by LeBron was excusable, it was a tough shot that had a good look and those aren't going to go in 100% of the time, but that lay-up that he blew was pretty shaky. It's interesting because the whole course of that overtime literally changed with that blown Dwayne Wade-Rajon Rondo call. The Celtics never recovered from that. That was not a good time to miss a call on the refs' end. You know they're never going to hear the end of it in the newspapers and sports talk shows. And I kind of don't feel sorry for them. It was a bad call to miss, they should get some flak for missing it.
