NBA Finals Gamethread or how the NBA has more downtime than Game Of Thrones
- Thread starter DeJesus Built My Hotrod
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They broke the record for threes made in a playoff game. Sure, they're capable of shooting better than they did in the first three games. But what they're doing tonight is in no way, shape, or form sustainable.
Does Charles Barkley really believe the shit he's saying about Lue, or is Lue one of his buddies?
They're like a 35% three point shooting team, shooting 55% tonight.
They'll come back to earth and get crushed in game 5.
They're going to win by over 20 points. They don't need to sustain that to win. They just need to be much better than they were in the 1st 3 games, which they are obviously more than capable of.
Of course, I don't see it happening. I think they're going to get their doors blown off in game 5 in Oakland, but I'm just happy to get another game. .
If they shot 35% tonight, they still would have won by about 10 points. That's my point. They don't need to break records, they just need to be who they usually are, and they can compete with Golden State. They can't compete shooting 25% or whatever it was in the first 3 games.
Yeah, probably. This is still going to end up being a coronation but tonight was an entertaining footnote.
But Golden State won't shoot 28% next game, either. Everything possible went Cleveland's way tonight. They're finished in Oakland.
It's unreal. He had 14 points, and was basically invisible, and yet, they still scored 116 points. They are an offensive machine. It's like the old Loyola Marymount teams, but with a fantastic defense.
Oh, I don't disagree. I think Golden State is going to run them out of the building in game 5, but it sure would be fun to see Cleveland shoot better than they did in the first 3 games and keep it close. Like I said the other day, I'd kill to see 7 games of this, but alas, I doubt it happens.
Personally I just want to fast forward to the draft and summer league.
Sure, but Golden State shot worse than their norm in addition to Cleveland's historical shooting performance. And it still felt like they were constantly on the verge of a comeback until the last 5 or so minutes. Cleveland brought their A+ game and GS brought their C- game. If they both bring their B game.... well, we both know how that ends.
I'm with you though, more of these teams playing each other is undoubtedly a good thing. Tonight was super entertaining stuff.
And that's not counting the transition points that come so easy for the Warriors.
If the Cavs can't keep this up, they'll get blown out.
Don't ever count out LeBron James. I was at game six back in 2012 in Boston and game five last year in Oakland. The guy seems to summon some sort of extra source of energy when his back is against the wall. All this series needs is a turned ankle from one of the Warriors stars or a Draymond ejection and it can easily go seven.
And anyone complaining about these two teams playing one another again can piss off. Even with lopsided scores this series and this rivalry is great.
And anyone complaining about these two teams playing one another again can piss off. Even with lopsided scores this series and this rivalry is great.
Personally, I just want to fast forward to the 2020-2021 NBA season when hopefully the league will be competitive again m.
I'm not counting out LeBron, I'm counting out the rest of his non-Kyrie teammates.
Dubs by 15 on Monday.
Hard to believe that the bloated husk of Deron Williams can shoot 66% from the field again but stranger things have happened. Cleveland hit a ridiculous 53.3% from deep while the Warriors shot 28.2%. That's your ballgame right there.
Quite possibly the most entertaining blowout in the entire playoffs replete with referees making shit up, KD and LeBron jawing at each other, Zaza staging an MMA match with Shumpert and Deron "Eric Cartman" Williams and Kyrie Irving becoming a supernova. In a nutshell, nothing.
How was the date?
Lol I was at Wonder Woman with my girl.
One thing that stands out to me is that things are going to be addressed by the NBA, I doubt publicly, but even if there are small adjustments behind the scenes to how the refs handle things, that is going to benefit one of the two teams so who is it going to be? I assume GS.
I don't know whom it will benefit but you are right about one thing. The refereeing will get some home office feedback for sure.
In short, the refs called a tech on Draymond in the first half and then teed him up in the second half as well (and that one was a bullshit T even for a habitual line-over-stepper like Draymond - he barely even complained) which means an ejection. When they realized that they had, perhaps, been a bit overzealous on the second call, they then claimed that the first tech was on Steve Kerr and not Draymond despite the scorers all having in on Green and not Kerr (Doris Burke even reported that this was the unanimous view of all of the scorers). Van Gundy went nuts on the convenient change but, in the end, it had no consequence other than a bad look for the league and the refs.
The good news is that there is more basketball on Monday and you got to take your girl out and watch Gal Gadot. Its like a triple win.
I will say this. It wouldn't be the first time ever that a ref called the wrong guy out to the scorer's table. So, yes, all 3 scorers said they heard the ref say Green, but that still leaves some room for legitimate human error (it's a little harder to believe that they mixed up a coach with a numbered player, but whatever).
But it really doesn't look good.
This is a fair point and one that Breen (man, I hate giving him any sort of credit) made when Van Gundy and Jackson were going off about the change. Breen's point, which was sort of plausible, was that the arena was so loud when the first T was called that it wasn't hard to see the scorers not hearing the refs properly.
That said, yeah, not a good look.
It was also a personal foul on Green and a technical on... somebody... and so you can understand just a little either the refs fumbling over it or the scorers hearing it wrong or what-have-you. Never ascribe to conspiracy what is sufficiently accounted for by incompetence.
I don't understand why the NBA doesn't just have its best officials work every Finals game. The NBA knows who those guys are, because they make sure those guys get the game 7 assignments. Just about everybody thinks Danny Crawford and Monty McCutcheon are the league's best refs. The LA Times surveyed players and coaches last year on who they think are the best officials, and those two guys finished in the top 3. Not surprisingly, they both reffed last year's Game 7 in the finals.
So why not just have those guys do every game?
So why not just have those guys do every game?
This really is ridiculous the stuff I'm reading about that first half T. Yes, there was a foul of Green followed by a Technical on someone. Would that someone have been the player who didn't react at all, calmly bounced the ball to the official......or the Head Coach who sprinted at the official like Lawrence Taylor at a scrambling quarterback while screaming and waving his arms. If the T was on the player it would have been assessed immediately......in this case the ref called the personal foul, calmly walked toward the scorers table, accepted the soft bounce pass from Draymond and that was it. THEN when Kerr was in an all out sprint the official signaled the Technical.
I mean did anyone really think twice that the T wasn't on Kerr in the first half? The only possible conspiracy to me is that Kerr ever had a back injury.....guy looked like he could have outplayed Deron in the first 3 games moving like that!
Yes, Kerr did sprint, but it also could have been a last-straw, muttering swears type of thing on Green. The truth is none of us really know.
Release the tapes!
I suppose there is no absolute certainty as there was obviously some level of confusion. I just know from my vantage point watching it both live and the replay that it never once occurred to me that the T was on Draymond based on the officials actions, his timing of issuing the T which coincided with him thinking he was about to take a sack at the hands of Kerr.Yes, Kerr did sprint, but it also could have been a last-straw, muttering swears type of thing on Green. The truth is none of us really know.
Release the tapes!
I filter out much of the gibble gabble between the broadcasting guys so I never heard if they said who it was on at the time.
If you go back to the live shots of the play, Green didn't know the foul was on him initially. So yes, he calmly bounced the ball back to the ref after the whistle and began to walk away, but later, when he found out the foul was on him, he went off like a Fourth of July fireworks explosion, right around the same time that Kerr ran at the refs. I don't believe the replays showed Green's meltdown, but you can clearly see it during the live action. When the ref signaled the technical, it could have been on either of them, and frankly, should have been on both of them (especially when you take into account the actions that resulted in IT4 getting a technical or two in the playoffs).
I would have had no problem with them giving a T to Kerr, but there is no way in hell that all three scorers heard the ref wrong, and put it on Green, and there is even less of a chance that the technical on Green was allowed to stand through halftime and into the third quarter with no ref noticing the mistake until the 2nd technical was called. My only reaction at this point when it comes to NBA officiating is "just when you think you've seen it all..."
HRB, I don’t think it is a matter of fans or non-fans being ridiculous, it is what took place.
All three scorers said that the ref “told them” that the ref said the tech was on Green and confirmed by follow up questions to the ref. And the Ref said that he told the scorers that the tech was on Kerr.
So, someone is lying.
All three scorers said that the ref “told them” that the ref said the tech was on Green and confirmed by follow up questions to the ref. And the Ref said that he told the scorers that the tech was on Kerr.
So, someone is lying.
Or, as Breen suggested, they didn't hear the ref clearly when he went over to inform them who the T was on in the first half. The arena was understandably loud and raucous given the Cavs first half offensive explosion.
Regarding the second technical, I could see it being called on Kerr because, as HRB notes, he ran right at the officials. However Green's reaction was tame for him and while he runs "hot" all the time (and gets a a lot of rope), its just a bullshit call given the context. You simply cannot let that be a deciding factor in an elimination game.
Those arguing otherwise (not saying anyone here is to be clear) either simply hate Draymond Green or are pining for a level of player conduct that doesn't exist. I understand the former because Green's style of play clearly rubs people the wrong way. However anyone who watches the sport consistently knows that the vast majority of players are talking shit all game and are constantly protesting foul calls or lawyering their way out of the next one. Given the stakes of the game, its understandable that any player would be frustrated in that situation.
No. People need to stop saying this with such certainty. I know Mark Jackson said the same - that someone was lying - on the broadcast. But he's not exactly the brightest person in the world, and he was wrong to make that accusation on national TV.
There is such a thing as human fallibility. Yes, it's unlikely that 3 scorers heard wrong, But it's very possible that the ref said the foul was on Green but swears he remembers calling it on Kerr.
The other day I accused my girlfriend of moving something important of mine. I *always* put it in the same place so that it never gets lost, and I clearly remembered leaving it there last. Of course, I later found it in a place where only I would have put it, and I apologized.
I'm sure we all have examples like this in our lives. Memory is far from perfect. Now add in the crazy, stressful atmosphere of an NBA Championship Game.
I'll be one of the first people to line up saying it looks suspicious, but let's at least allow a little room for the possibility that the refs were being actual professionals here and not call them flat out liars.
Yeah, I was going to post something similar. His initial reaction surprised me because he didn't go crazy, but once Draymond realized the call was on him he did the normal Draymond reaction that's a tech for 99% of the league.
The bolded part here is incorrect. The second technical was not the one that Kerr ran at the officials. The second technical foul was the one where Draymond got called for reaching around a player trying to catch a pass. He walked over towards Kerr and started waiving his hands like he usually does (and which results in a technical for almost everyone else in the league). They then teed him up. Kerr didn't do anything that would have led to him getting a technical during that play.
It was the first technical where Kerr ran at the officials. It was on the jump ball play, where Draymond basically sucker punched Shumpert. Green walked away briefly, and then when he realized they called the foul on him, he erupted, right around the same time that Kerr ran at the officials. That's the one that all three scorers said the ref said was on Draymond and later changed after the second technical.
Draymond is now telling everyone he knew he had only one technical, and he knew the first one was on Kerr. If that were even remotely true, then why after he got the "second" technical did he basically put on a full on display, where he refused to leave the court, etc. At that moment, he thought he had been thrown out of the game, and if he's saying otherwise, he's lying. If nothing else, he should have received a second or "third" technical for that display.
That still doesn't eliminate the possibility of an honest ref mistake on the first T. The ref made the T signal in the face of both Kerr and Green. If the ref mistakenly told the scorers it was on Green, then it's possible that's what Green heard as well.
I'd love to have a video replay of that whole sequence with audio.
I'd love to have a video replay of that whole sequence with audio.
Oh I agree with you, it was likely an honest mistake, but Draymond was being demonstrative as usual.
No, Green is claiming now that the refs told him the first technical was on Kerr, so when he got the "second" technical, he knew all along he wasn't getting ejected.
If the ref "mistakenly" told the scorers it was on Green, they should say that. But they aren't. The ref is saying "I didn't verbalize to the table who the technical was on..." He's essentially saying "I called a technical, but I didn't tell the scoring table who it was on, and they just assumed it was on Green." On top of that, everyone in the stadium seems to have heard the PA announcer say it was on Green, except the refs, or if the refs heard that, they apparently ignored it and didn't think it was important enough to correct it at the time, or at halftime, or at any other time between the two technicals. Steve Kerr admitted after the game that he thought the first technical was on Draymond, and he thought Draymond was getting ejected after the second one. Based on his and Draymond's reactions after the second technical, there is no doubt in my mind that Draymond is lying when he says he knew the first was on Kerr. I still have it on DVR, and it's pretty clear to me that the technical should have been called on both of them in the first quarter, but even though Kerr ran out on onto the court, Draymond was literally losing his mind two steps away and calling it on either of them would have been warranted.
Below is a story breaking down what happened. Personally, I don't believe in conspiracies, and think it's far more likely that this is incompetence than something shady, but to me, the real problem with the NBA and it's officiating IS the incompetence. I feel like folks who are defending this is as not something underhanded are missing the point. It doesn't need to be a conspiracy to be unforgivable. Like I said, just when you think you've seen it all...It's becoming a farce, and it's too bad, because this really does have the chance to become one of the greatest eras in NBA history, IMO.
https://www.si.com/nba/2017/06/10/warriors-cavs-finals-draymond-green-steve-kerr-technical-foul-refs-referees-controversy