SGA was also beat badly on the initial upfake from PJ Washington, which clearly played a part in the call. SGA's incredible body control kept it close, but from my view it was a no doubt foul.
Refs gone wild: a place to complain about NBA referees and propose solutions to improving officiating
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That was a tremendous anticipation play by Kyrie and I’m glad he didn’t get to experience being the hero. Tough play for OKC but they blew a 16 point halftime lead and gave up nearly 70 points in the second half. When you let it get to a one possession game, this stuff happens.
Hard to know if that plays out the same way given the whistle. Certainly looked like he was in good position though.
I think the only reason there's controversy is because the NBA is taking a page out of the NFL playbook and and overparsing it's rules. Washington had control of the ball after SGA's contact with the ball and then SGA hit his arm, which impeded his ability to shoot or pass (and was not "marginal"). That should be a foul and I think was correctly called as such.
To me, the arm contact is a foul. And the issue the nba has is they made the exact opposite ruling on a Jaylen Brown shot earlier this year in identical contact situation.
I suspect they simply blew the Jaylen call and so the officiating comment is “be consistent”
I suspect they simply blew the Jaylen call and so the officiating comment is “be consistent”
yeah, that is why to me it's a consistency question. There is no NBA rule that supprots the whole "if you touch ball first contact is ok after" anyway---that's some interpretation NBA ops came up with. I get they need a more detailed set of guidelines, and that one to me is inconsistent with the actual written rule anyway.
Just to say, I'm ok with them calling it correctly (by the actual rule) going forward...and if I were Brad, I'd be on phone to NBA today to be clear that privately they either need to acknowledge the Jaylen one was wrong or clarify how the rule is going to be interpreted going forward so team can make a good assessment of what to challenge and not
So I’ve seen the media repeatedly use the term “controversial” to describe Doncic’s blocking foul that led to him fouling out last night. Anyone else get this? Seems like a pretty obvious foul to me as I can’t see how anyone would think Doncic had position.
It's only controversial beacuse of who it was called on and when it was called. On a Monday night in Charlotte that's as benign and routine a block call as you'll see.
At the risk of sounding incredibly obvious, that foul was "controversial" in the sense that most people around the NBA have been conditioned to accept that stars get calls (and non-calls) as needed to stay in the game, and if they do get a foul it's never a sixth foul, and if they do get a sixth foul it has to be something that is pretty unquestionable.
It would have been totally insane to turn that into a charge on review (I don't doubt that the refs were doing some of this fallout-calculus in their mind during the review process, but they couldn't go there). A no-call would have been really bold there, since there was a lot of contact that brought both players to the ground, but that would have been the only other possible outcome. Once the whistle blew, it was inevitably going to be a blocking call.
Edit: a small cynical part of me thinks that that play happened so fast (JB barreling ahead in transition) and so soon after Luka picked up his 5th that the ref didn't have a chance to process the consequences of blowing another foul call on Luka and just reacted to the play itself (then was like, "oh shit, what have I done?")
Edit: a small cynical part of me thinks that that play happened so fast (JB barreling ahead in transition) and so soon after Luka picked up his 5th that the ref didn't have a chance to process the consequences of blowing another foul call on Luka and just reacted to the play itself (then was like, "oh shit, what have I done?")
And the questions to Kidd & Luka were pathetic. Softballs to give them referee or fake injury excuses.
If Brown doesn't also go to the ground I bet it's a no call...but once he goes down too I agree, would have been super bold not to call anything.
Re: the bolded, that's a good point and maybe JB realized it too, in which case credit to him. He forced the refs to make a call and maybe if the refs had an awareness of the situation it would have been handled differently. Of course, the call was correct so it is sort of a moot point.
Maybe I only listen to the people who are good, but not really, almost everyone is saying... "yeah it's a foul, and it's dumb to even put yourself in that position".
Funny thing is... DAL has a much more legit gripe about the illegal screen call on Washington later, but because Luka is the star they are whining about the obvious one.
Did we ever get clarification that the 5th foul was NOT actually challenged by Dallas? That was super confusing during the game.
Just for posterity, here are all 6 of Luka's fouls. I don't think any of them are controversial, and there are some (not pictured) that he got away with.
What I didn't realize is that Luka got 4 of his 6 fouls in the 4th quarter, all within basically 6 minutes. That's a truly terrible stretch from an MVP candidate in game 3 of the finals.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRrjU78NgME
What I didn't realize is that Luka got 4 of his 6 fouls in the 4th quarter, all within basically 6 minutes. That's a truly terrible stretch from an MVP candidate in game 3 of the finals.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRrjU78NgME
After his fourth foul it seemed obvious (to me—I called it at the time) that he was going to foul out. He was tired and that was his way of getting off the court. Loser.
An absolutely damning clip for Luka. He basically whined or had a shit eating grin after 5 of 6 of them. The guy is an absolute baby. Those were all fouls that junior high kids would get chewed out by their coach for committing.
I don't think it's a huge stretch at this point to say that the Mavs organization has enabled all of his worst tendencies, and now it's coming back to bite them.
Maybe someone will be able to get through to him now, and we'll get a classic Finals with Dallas in a year or two.
Feel like this is what happens when you have an owner like Cuban who wants to be best buds with his star players. With Kyrie aging and always a flake risk, this might be it for Dallas.
For all the talk about the Celtics fortunate path, this year really aligned well for Dallas. They mortgaged a lot of the future for this roster and avoided Denver, who seems like a bad matchup for them.
They did mortgage some of their future, but every team will, or should do that if it gets you to the NBA finals. And their future is still looking decently bright with Lively and Omax, and maybe Hardy. They are set up nicely for the next few years actually. Have Washington and Gafford on great contracts for two more years - have Hardaway's expiring next year if they want to make a move there.
Their roster is not terrible, despite a lot of folks talking about how Luka was stranded on an island trying to make chicken salad out of chicken shit. PJ is on a great contract. Lively is a keeper. Gafford is useful. Not terrible.
I think that some of the "what's next for Dallas" speculation is around the Kyrie, Luka, Kidd triumvirate, if they whimper out in this series. Kyrie is a wildcard obviously. But also Luka's the big dog and could likely get his coach run if it came to it, and there would be fallout. I don't think that it's crazy to suggest that next year's team could look very different, but it also might not.
I think this is exactly right. When there’s contact and the ball carrier goes to the ground something has to be called. There’s no way that was a charge so they really had no choice. It’s also why it’s exact the right call.
I’ve heard some commentators say Luka shouldn’t be trying to draw a charge there. I don’t think he was at all. I think he was exhausted and trying to play defense. He’s just too tired and too slow.
They're set up to be a good team, but they really, really, really need playmaking roleplayers in the Jrue/DWhite vein. I know that's a high bar, but it's just too easy to defend them when you don't have to worry about playmakers attacking you in rotation.
OKC exploited this somewhat too, just couldn't score enough themselves.
The game log says it was a Celtic full timeout so I think it was a stoppage for TV timeout and the announcers didn't notice and guessed what was happening.
Yeah, I don’t see Dallas being much better than a 5-6 seed first or second round out in the playoffs next year. If healthy I think Denver/C’s next year.
L2M report:
View: https://twitter.com/KeithSmithNBA/status/1801352065903370345
By far the worst call of the game (given the timing and significance) was the no call when Green shoved Horford out of bounds. It should have been a "free throws to clinch it" game after that, and that no call forced Boston to play real D for one more possession. Of course it's not brought up anywhere (along with the obvious attempt to intentionally foul by White), because Boston won. How it goes.
Bonus points for the Boston defense to force Kyrie to take 17 seconds to get a shot up. Down 4 and with a very makable 2 for one chance, that was just huge.
View: https://twitter.com/KeithSmithNBA/status/1801352065903370345
By far the worst call of the game (given the timing and significance) was the no call when Green shoved Horford out of bounds. It should have been a "free throws to clinch it" game after that, and that no call forced Boston to play real D for one more possession. Of course it's not brought up anywhere (along with the obvious attempt to intentionally foul by White), because Boston won. How it goes.
Bonus points for the Boston defense to force Kyrie to take 17 seconds to get a shot up. Down 4 and with a very makable 2 for one chance, that was just huge.
i thought they should’ve challenged the horford call but at the time i thought maybe i was being caught up in the emotion of the game.
i thought they should’ve challenged the horford call but at the time i thought maybe i was being caught up in the emotion of the game.
At the time I thought Al must have stepped on the line before he got so obviously shoved. I thought it was weird how nobody talked about it.. and it was suddenly just Mavs ball.
No. Same way Joe stole a possession in the first half by challenging an OOB off Luka that was caused by a very ovbious hack by Jrue..... can only review who it went out off not why.
If they could work out a blockbuster Kyrie would make a helluva mentor for Morant.
It's definitely it for Dallas. At least for the next handful of years. Wins against two teams clearly not ready to ascend - OKC and Minn - painted people's glasses pretty fucking rosey for the Mavs.
They were lucky to get to the finals this year, and I don't see them as a top 4 team in the west going forward. Hell, you could tell me they're a bubble team next year and I'd buy it. I think there's an argument that a good chunk of the teams listed below might be better than Dallas next season.
Minnesota
OKC
Denver
Suns
Pelicans
Kings
Clippers
Warriors
And if you told me that Houston continued it's improvement, Wemby makes a big leap, or Morant revives the Grizzlies, that wouldn't surprise me either.
Nobody at the start, middle, or end of the season thought Dallas was a championship contender. Tomorrow night, it's time to relegate them back to mediocrity.
The broadcast noted White was trying to get the official's attention around the contact he made with Hardaway's arm before he started shooting.
I'd completely forgotten about that— it was baffling. White intentionally grabbed Hardaway's arm in plain view of the ref, then stopped defending to gesture to the ref blow the whistle, who instead let them continue playing (??!!). Hardaway wound up with an undefended three and bricked it. It seemed like a strange thing where the ref couldn't have missed the contact but rather made some instinctual decision to ignore it. That shot would have brought the Mavs within 3 with 19 seconds left— instead it was officially 'game over' when he missed it.
I wondered at the time if the ref would have blown the whistle and given the "on the floor" foul if the shot had gone in. I've seen later whistles.
I think Dallas will be in the mix in the West next year but it's going to be tough for any team to come out two years in a row. It's just matchups, health, luck/shooting variance...the teams are very close competitively. They'll slog their way through the regular season, probably be a 4 or 5 seed and then the playoffs will come down to close games that could swing one way or the other. Luka and Kyrie obviously create a lot of problems for teams who are not the Celtics. That's not going to change over the next two-three years at least.
Marcus on the Mavs has a "Butler on the Wolves" vibe to it. They already have PJ and Lively for toughness/energy. Marcus is a better fit on a young team that needs his leadership and grit but doesn't think that they're above having to listen to him.