5 vs 8: Where we discuss the quality (or lack thereof) of NBA Playoff Officiating

nighthob

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I mean that was the hilarious part, you can see on the replay that the elbow drop was egregious and they had to stop play for the blood. The refs didn't even have the speed excuse because they reviewed the play. They just decided to give Bam a mulligan. That was a pretty clear flagrant 1.
 

djbayko

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I will say this again. The game is reffed the way the players, Coaches, and league decide. Until at least two of the three agree to punish the stage acting it will persist. No other player calls out floppers, no opposing coach goes off on Lowry. This tells me they accept it, or maybe like it.

The star players Harden, LBJ, Smart, Lowry, all do it, so probably don't want it punished. Getting calls is seen as status. If the gamthreads (shudder) are indicative of fans the complaints about Tatum exaggerating contact, laying on the floor, whining, and not running back on D are outnumbered by about 20-1 by complaints that he DESERVES those calls.

So here we are, we are all so polarized, biased, that we pillory Lowry, yet (I think only me) rarely mention Smart, or White, or any Celtic. If it's bullshit when they do it, it's bullshit when we do it.

edit to be more brief
I see the complaints about him complaining and not getting back on D. Are you sure those same comments are complaining about Tatum exaggerating contact? I don't see it, but my memory is bad sometimes. I'd be surprised. Tatum is a complainer but I don't personally put him in the flopper category at all.
 

djbayko

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There is or also needs to be a difference between flopping to exaggerate a call and flopping when there was absolutely no contact. The former has a place in the game IMO. Some guys are so strong and are in correct position but if they don't "flop" on what is an offensive foul, it is just a play on. The latter makes me want to repeatedly punch the likes of Lowry
Yes, and then there is also the Lowry special of grabbing an opponent for the purpose of acting like you're the one being fouled. When caught, that should be it's own special category of flagrant foul. It requires premeditation.
 

Strike4

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Just ran into my friend who is a Warriors fan and the first thing he mentioned was how awful the reffing was in the Celtics Heat series.
 

benhogan

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I mean that was the hilarious part, you can see on the replay that the elbow drop was egregious and they had to stop play for the blood. The refs didn't even have the speed excuse because they reviewed the play. They just decided to give Bam a mulligan. That was a pretty clear flagrant 1.
Agreed, it was an obvious flagrant. I try not to game thread complain about calls since I don't want to be labeled an entitled whiny AAU parent. Then again if my kids were good enough I guess I wouldn't mind the title, I've been called worse.

The NBA refs try to manage the score by giving 50/50 calls to the teams down double digits, they've been doing it for the last 45yrs I've been watching. Not shocked the whistle favored the Heat yesterday since Boston led wire to wire.
 

djbayko

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I mean that was the hilarious part, you can see on the replay that the elbow drop was egregious and they had to stop play for the blood. The refs didn't even have the speed excuse because they reviewed the play. They just decided to give Bam a mulligan. That was a pretty clear flagrant 1.
Did they? I was under the impression that they declined to review. If so, that's even worse. It was a clear flagrant.
 

Auger34

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Did they? I was under the impression that they declined to review. If so, that's even worse. It was a clear flagrant.
Im 99% sure that they didn’t review the foul call on Adebayo. It was a talking point on twitter (specifically Sean Grande mentioned it) that the refs just chose not to review that for a flagrant
 

Auger34

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Simmons and Russillo put out a pod last night and Russillo kind of nailed how I felt about the officiating last night.

Personally, I thought that they rewarded Butler a little too much on his drives but I can at least rationalize that…

Continually giving Kyle Lowry the benefit of the doubt on calls in Game 7 is insane. The guys proven all series that he’s flopping if anyones near him. At that point, to me, you can only call a foul for him if he’s absolutely fucking bulldozed not if he’s touched and flies to the ground. I think there were 4 or 5 calls that he got that were terrible in real time
 

yecul

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The refs are discussed because we want to watch teams compete. If there are rules but the rules cannot be enforced consistently or properly due to game speed, then the arbitrary role the refs play creep in.

Instead of a purer experience you now have inconsistency. Instead of a call being a call you have acting be a significant factor. Instead of enjoying a win or tipping a cap in a loss you have a cloud over any given game.

Bam picked up a few screen fouls, but not for many of his total screens. Pick any 10 and fins the 1 or 2 fouls. You probably can't. The refs probably couldn't. Replay would reveal a different outcome. this is undeniable. But, as was said, the refs don't even know what is and is not a foul anymore (in real time) so how can the fans?
 

Jed Zeppelin

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What if there was a "too much contact" choice? To be called when both offensive and defensive players welcome the contact.
When it is too much contact, the refs can whistle the play dead and the offense gets an out of bounds play (say, with 10 seconds not 5 to inbound, but no substitutions). And no one gets assesed a foul
This is a water polo rule but that’s a free-flowing game, just a quick whistle to get the defender to back off for a second and play goes on. Adding a bunch of extra in bounds per game would be a lot.
 

geoduck no quahog

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My favorite part of the game was when Lowry tried to fake into a foul, the Celtic player backed off, Lowry fell down and called the next to last time out to avoid a jump ball.
 

JCizzle

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Foul on Grant says all you need to know about how the first half of this game was officiated.

 

JCizzle

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Here's the other one that sticks in my head. Poole clearly trips him - yet somehow GS gets the benefit of stopping play to make the Celtics inbound AND weren't called for any infraction. I sure know that when I protect myself, my instinct is to pull my arms in to protect my head/body, not extend them.

 

Ed Hillel

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If officials are going to give Draymond Green of all people the Giannis treatment, someone needs to Rambis Draymond. Probably Grant is the guy.
 

Light-Tower-Power

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Here's the other one that sticks in my head. Poole clearly trips him - yet somehow GS gets the benefit of stopping play to make the Celtics inbound AND weren't called for any infraction.

This was egregious. I don't necessarily disagree with the no call and I think White may have flopped a bit, but stopping the fast break only to rescind the T was complete bullshit.
 

Light-Tower-Power

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I just remembered that Zarba was the crew chief of the 55 foul G6 ECF crew. He's consistently awful. I'm not saying it's "rigged", but the NBA knew what they were getting when they assigned him this game and I struggle to believe it's a coincidence.
 

djbayko

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I just went over to r/NBA and even non-BOS/GSW fans are talking about it, so we're definitely not crazy. Sure, you get a healthy amount of people say you can't blame it on the refs after the 3rd quarter. But there are a lot of sober comments about the refs taking the Celtics out of it in the first half with the blatantly biased calls.
 

HomeRunBaker

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This was egregious. I don't necessarily disagree with the no call and I think White may have flopped a bit, but stopping the fast break only to rescind the T was complete bullshit.
The problem with this call was the initial whistle which blew my mind. Even if it was an egregious tackle/trip, which it wasn’t, the whistle benefits the team who the official initially thought caused the violation.

Hey, we all should know how this works and what to have expected tonight. Fortunately it didn’t cost us as Ime made sure of that.
 

djbayko

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It’s impossible to say that. No one knows how this game turns out if the Celtics were allowed to continued with their momentum in the first quarter.

Sure they played like ass I the 3rd. Both are true and both had an impact.
 

BigSoxFan

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Foul on Grant says all you need to know about how the first half of this game was officiated.

Beyond the absurdity of that being a foul of Williams, that was an incredibly dangerous play by Draymond. Dude is like 260 pounds and he drove Williams right into the court. Williams easily could have snapped an elbow or wrist there.

Draymond is as dirty of a player as you can get in the NBA. Truly a disgusting performance by him tonight. If refs keep letting this go, it’s only a matter of time before someone suffers a serious injury.
 

Light-Tower-Power

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Zarba and Tony Brothers. Was always going to be a weirdly called game. Tony is bad, and Zack is terrible.

Foster in game 3 with a 1-1 series will be a breath of fresh air by comparison.
Foster has been fine in every Celtics game he has officiated this postseason. No complaints about him from me.

Zach Zarba, on the other hand, makes me want to turn off the TV. He’s a modern day Joey Crawford. He’s the biggest “look at me!!!”official in the league and can’t call a game for shit. Fuck Zach Zarba, and I mean that generally not because of tonight. He’s awful for the product.
 

Auger34

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Ime, who never criticizes the refs, gets a tech during the game.

Horford, who I don’t think has ever said even a word about the refs postgame says this….I know there are the ref crusaders around here who refuse to ever say a negative word about them but they clearly had a pretty big effect on the game tonight

View: https://twitter.com/ByJayKing/status/1533647484420902912
 

Light-Tower-Power

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Beyond the absurdity of that being a foul of Williams, that was an incredibly dangerous play by Draymond. Dude is like 260 pounds and he drove Williams right into the court. Williams easily could have snapped an elbow or wrist there.

Draymond is as dirty of a player as you can get in the NBA. Truly a disgusting performance by him tonight. If refs keep letting this go, it’s only a matter of time before someone suffers a serious injury.
There’s going to be a fight and players are going to be ejected and/or suspended, which is the last thing anyone wants to see. The officials need to do a much better job of controlling him moving forward.
 

soxhop411

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I bet the folks at NBA HQ are going to love Green openly admitting he gets preferential treatment to reporters after todays game. Especially with most major leagues being heavily intertwined with sports betting.

View: https://twitter.com/malika_andrews/status/1533651254382981121?s=21&t=dNvM72FD2sm2pBE_BgEOGw
Draymond Green, in part, to @michaeleaves on getting tangled up with Jaylen Brown: “It’s the NBA finals. Like I said, I wear my badge of honor. It’s not that I’m saying they necessarily treat me different. I’ve earned differential treatment. I enjoy that. I embrace that…
“I’m not going to say they treat me different, but I get different treatment”
 
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lars10

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Just thinking about tonite more.. game one was such a nice change and well officiated game comparatively. C's could have lost game one and I wouldn't have been pissed because the game had such a great flow. Tonite's game was the exact opposite. Zero flow and just a slog all night.
 

Auger34

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Just thinking about tonite more.. game one was such a nice change and well officiated game compared. C's could have lost game one and I wouldn't have been pissed because the game had such a great flow. Tonite's game was the exact opposite. Zero flow and just a slog all night.
Absolutely. All of Zarba’s games feel like this. Unnecessary calls, video reviews which take fucking forever…basically whatever needs to happen in order for Zarba to get camera time and show off his douchey hair
 

JCizzle

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I bet the folks at NBA HQ are going to love Green openly admitting he gets preferential treatment to reporters after todays game. Especially with most major leagues being heavily intertwined with sports betting.

View: https://twitter.com/malika_andrews/status/1533651254382981121?s=21&t=dNvM72FD2sm2pBE_BgEOGw

“I’m not going to say they treat me different, but I get different treatment”
Yeah... I'm not sure how that's an acceptable quote. I'm sure the NBA will crack down on it though! Any day now.
 

scottyno

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Steve Javie admitting that refs should and do give preferential treatment and make different calls depending on the situation is everything that's wrong with the NBA.

A foul is a foul, whether it's 5 seconds into a game or with 5 seconds left, whether it's on Lebron James or Sam Hauser. Same goes for a technical or any other call. The fact that they're admitting that a guy who already has a tech (meaning he already crossed the line once) should get preferential treatment to not get another one is counterintuitive, he should get less benefit of the doubt not more since he already did it once. It isn't hard to not get 2 Ts in a game, once you get one just shut the fuck up and don't do anything stupid.
 

PedroKsBambino

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So you’re PBS or Wyc. You’ve got the videos above, you’ve got the replay of Jaylen not touching Mitten…what’s your plan?

brutally officiated game and as noted above—no telling what game is like is the first half is fairly officiated…Celts would have been up 15 at half. It’s a completely different game.

sigh
 

Justthetippett

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It’s impossible to say that. No one knows how this game turns out if the Celtics were allowed to continued with their momentum in the first quarter.

Sure they played like ass I the 3rd. Both are true and both had an impact.
Absolutely. The game was badly officiated and the Celts went ice cold and couldn’t hit their open looks, even when their offensive flow was not stagnant. The shitty thing about the officiating is that it confuses the X and O adjustments. They came out of the gates well, so the game plan was sound. Do they do that again or adjust like it’s going to be called a certain way? Part of what makes the NBA frustrating. And the Javie comment summed it all up. They put their thumb on the scales sometimes in the interests of making things competitive/captivating, and that kind of interference definitely impacts outcomes.
 

Bleedred

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Here's the thing: Draymond Green absolutely gets away with murder in these games, and moreover, he berates officials constantly and demonstratively and very rarely gets called for it. After he gets T'd up, he virtually never gets the second T, particularly in a playoff game. And you know what? That's not on Draymond, that's on the god awful officiating. Draymond was a major factor last night, showing his team that he's not fucking around and that he'll say and do whatever he needs to do to get an advantage, and fuck everyone else. I think he actually intimidates the officials. The simple remedy: give him his fouls, call technicals and disqualify him from the games when he "earns" those technicals. That the officials let him get away with this bullshit is on them, not Draymond.
 

BaseballJones

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All the refs need to do is call the fouls Draymond commits. That’s it. Let him whine and complain. Just turn and tell him to stop hacking and you’ll stop calling it. Then Draymond has a choice. He can foul out or he can play cleaner.

It’s really not that hard.
 

lovegtm

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All the refs need to do is call the fouls Draymond commits. That’s it. Let him whine and complain. Just turn and tell him to stop hacking and you’ll stop calling it. Then Draymond has a choice. He can foul out or he can play cleaner.

It’s really not that hard.
But how would Steve Javie get drama erections in that case? Think about the product, man.
 

Bleedred

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All the refs need to do is call the fouls Draymond commits. That’s it. Let him whine and complain. Just turn and tell him to stop hacking and you’ll stop calling it. Then Draymond has a choice. He can foul out or he can play cleaner.

It’s really not that hard.
This. Said more succinctly than I did.
 

TrapperAB

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If Draymond had a dedicated camera covering him the entire time, and we watched it from start to finish, all of our heads would explode. Dude is dirty by design.

He didn’t just tackle Grant to the ground, he then straddled him while jawing at him, making it look like it was hard for him to get up. (Narrator: It wasn’t.)

Lest you think that Green didn’t do the crotch dangle intentionally, he did it AGAIN, this time with Horford. Pretty sure there was a third time, too. I’d re-watch and track down the clips, but I’d punch my TV and I like my TV.

So by the time Draymond put his feet on Jaylen, two things were clear:

1) He was doing all of this shit because that was his game plan coming in — this was him being a leader, setting a tone, contributing in ways only he can.

2) The Celtics were sick of his shit.

He should have been tossed.The refs know what Green is all about; he talks shit to them the entire game. That they put up with it, when they have such easily-bruised egos, is inexplicable.

Draymond is laughing at the refs, at the Celts, at the league right now. He knows he gets away with shit. He fucking counts on it.

It is infuriating.
 

HomeRunBaker

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Steve Javie admitting that refs should and do give preferential treatment and make different calls depending on the situation is everything that's wrong with the NBA.

A foul is a foul, whether it's 5 seconds into a game or with 5 seconds left, whether it's on Lebron James or Sam Hauser. Same goes for a technical or any other call. The fact that they're admitting that a guy who already has a tech (meaning he already crossed the line once) should get preferential treatment to not get another one is counterintuitive, he should get less benefit of the doubt not more since he already did it once. It isn't hard to not get 2 Ts in a game, once you get one just shut the fuck up and don't do anything stupid.
It really isn’t preferential treatment though. The purpose of a Double T is to provide a warning of sorts to BOTH players equally…….not to penalize one by eliminating them from the game. Jaylen was as guilty for retaliating in this case. This simply isn’t how the game of basketball is supposed to be managed. So many in here have been adamant about the refs not being the focal point of the game yet in this one instance where both players were guilty of marginal scuffling you want the official to be the focal point. I said last night that we’ve seen double T’s REVERSED in these situations bc the purpose of the double T isn’t the same as issuing a single T.
 

JCizzle

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It really isn’t preferential treatment though. The purpose of a Double T is to provide a warning of sorts to BOTH players equally…….not to penalize one by eliminating them from the game. Jaylen was as guilty for retaliating in this case. This simply isn’t how the game of basketball is supposed to be managed. So many in here have been adamant about the refs not being the focal point of the game yet in this one instance where both players were guilty of marginal scuffling you want the official to be the focal point. I said last night that we’ve seen double T’s REVERSED in these situations bc the purpose of the double T isn’t the same as issuing a single T.
I'll grant you the double T. There are still dozens of instances of him aggressively berating the officials in the first half that earn any other player a T without them blinking. I think what most people are asking for is some semblance of consistency.
 

Ed Hillel

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I’m sorry, but if you try to pants someone while you have a technical already, you should be ejected. The simple solution is not to pants someone.

The shit he got away with outside that was worse, though. He’s not playing basketball out there.
 

HomeRunBaker

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I'll grant you the double T. There are still dozens of instances of him aggressively berating the officials in the first half that earn any other player a T without them blinking.
Unquestionably. It’s going to have to be pretty egregious for him to get tossed out of an NBA Finals game though and he knows this.
 

PedroKsBambino

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If Draymond had a dedicated camera covering him the entire time, and we watched it from start to finish, all of our heads would explode. Dude is dirty by design.

He didn’t just tackle Grant to the ground, he then straddled him while jawing at him, making it look like it was hard for him to get up. (Narrator: It wasn’t.)

Lest you think that Green didn’t do the crotch dangle intentionally, he did it AGAIN, this time with Horford. Pretty sure there was a third time, too. I’d re-watch and track down the clips, but I’d punch my TV and I like my TV.

So by the time Draymond put his feet on Jaylen, two things were clear:

1) He was doing all of this shit because that was his game plan coming in — this was him being a leader, setting a tone, contributing in ways only he can.

2) The Celtics were sick of his shit.

He should have been tossed.The refs know what Green is all about; he talks shit to them the entire game. That they put up with it, when they have such easily-bruised egos, is inexplicable.

Draymond is laughing at the refs, at the Celts, at the league right now. He knows he gets away with shit. He fucking counts on it.

It is infuriating.
I believe all of above is true. That is where I'd focus if I were Celtics---essentially get the video of that and share with league and ask them the question: "is this what you want us to do all game? We need to know the rules going into game 3 so we can tell our guys to do all the Draymond crap too, or need you to instruct the officials to call it" And then, before tip-off and essentially at the first stoppage of play, Ime needs to be talking to the in-game refs about living up to the answer (which hopefully is calling the rulebook, but if not allowing both teams to play rugby).

Do I expect perfect consistency? Of course not. But I do believe the best way to pressure the league on this is a combo of public statements and being clear that your players will reciprocate. I simply do not believe you can do this by hoping for better answers from league---and that's based on a long, long time watching this.
 

BaseballJones

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Brown didn’t deserve a T for that play so giving a double T, while helping Boston due to a Green ejection, would still have been “unjust”. I would happily have taken it to get Green out but only one guy deserved a T there: Green.

To hear Javie and JVG (who I normally like a lot) say that’s good officiating is outrageous. They admitted they’d give a T to another player there but not Draymond because it would have been his second, and because it’s Draymond. They’d have had no problem tossing Nesmith in that situation.

Thst one play illustrates everything that’s wrong with the NBA.
 

JCizzle

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I'll also say that a large amount of my frustration last night stems from how well game 1 was called in contrast. They let both teams play and there was an incredible flow to the game. On Thursday, the teams earned the large swings at different points of the game.
 

PedroKsBambino

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It really isn’t preferential treatment though. The purpose of a Double T is to provide a warning of sorts to BOTH players equally…….not to penalize one by eliminating them from the game. Jaylen was as guilty for retaliating in this case. This simply isn’t how the game of basketball is supposed to be managed. So many in here have been adamant about the refs not being the focal point of the game yet in this one instance where both players were guilty of marginal scuffling you want the official to be the focal point. I said last night that we’ve seen double T’s REVERSED in these situations bc the purpose of the double T isn’t the same as issuing a single T.
Sorry, but you're being illogical. What happened before the double technical is, by the rulebook, irrelevant. You know that is true.

I agree that the purpose of the double technical is to warn both players about their behavior. Whether one has been warned before does not change that goal from a game-management perspective, though. If what you say is true, there is in fact no 'warning' going on at all---think about what the word means. What you are describing is not a 'warning' it is a 'get out of jail free card' where any subsequent misbehavior is not penalized. That is, by your own words, not the purpose of the double technical. Or the prior warning. By your description, all technicals are 'get out of jail free cards' not warnings because they will never issue a second one. So, in that world, the point is to acquire your 'get out of jail free card' as soon as possible and then try to draw one on others rest of game with dirty play. That is bad, and it is precisely what Green did last night.

If your point is the league does what Javie says---ignores the rules and the purpose behind the rules to keep players in games---of course we know that is often true. The point being made here is that is neither right nor fair.