NBA officiating has been a joke for years now. Stern and the rest of the NBA brass are really discrediting the intelligence of basketball fans by the way the NBA is officiated. Millions of fans, many who played or coached basketball from their youth to adulthood, know what the rules are and know what is a violation of those rules. Yet, in the NBA, rules are "flexible", depending on the situation. Which totally invalidates the rules and leaves them meaningless.

What specifically bugged me about last night's game was the constant physical contact intiated by Fisher and Vujacic. They were constantly making contact with Williams, Korver, Harpring and Price yet only a couple of calls were made. Yet, if the Jazz so much as breath on their guy they draw the whistle. Frustrating! But, refs aside, the Jazz hurt themselves. Boozer needs to go strong to the basket against that wuss Gasol. And both Boozer and Mehmo keep leaving the backdoor open. When Kobe (or any other guy) drives to the basket, there is always a realease valve coming from the wing, usually Odom or Gasol. The Jazz seem to keep forgetting about that and leaving the backdoor open for easy dunks. Gasol's points come off easy plays where the defense breaks down. Odom is a fantastic athlete and ballplayer, but even his points come on easy dunks, layups and put-backs due to defensive breakdowns. I still think they have a shot at winning the series but they have to work on those things to get it done.

Slugger wrote:

NBA officiating has been a joke for years now. Stern and the rest of the NBA brass are really discrediting the intelligence of basketball fans by the way the NBA is officiated. Millions of fans, many who played or coached basketball from their youth to adulthood, know what the rules are and know what is a violation of those rules. Yet, in the NBA, rules are "flexible", depending on the situation. Which totally invalidates the rules and leaves them meaningless.

What specifically bugged me about last night's game was the constant physical contact intiated by Fisher and Vujacic. They were constantly making contact with Williams, Korver, Harpring and Price yet only a couple of calls were made. Yet, if the Jazz so much as breath on their guy they draw the whistle. Frustrating! But, refs aside, the Jazz hurt themselves. Boozer needs to go strong to the basket against that wuss Gasol. And both Boozer and Mehmo keep leaving the backdoor open. When Kobe (or any other guy) drives to the basket, there is always a realease valve coming from the wing, usually Odom or Gasol. The Jazz seem to keep forgetting about that and leaving the backdoor open for easy dunks. Gasol's points come off easy plays where the defense breaks down. Odom is a fantastic athlete and ballplayer, but even his points come on easy dunks, layups and put-backs due to defensive breakdowns. I still think they have a shot at winning the series but they have to work on those things to get it done.

Solution for the Jazz(choose one):
1. Get yourself a "super star" player, or
2. Move to a bigger TV market,

and you to may have the honor of having the refs call a biased game in your favor to help you make it to the next round of the playoffs.

Only alternative:
Be so talented that even biased refs are unable to throw the game.

It's the NBA guys. Remember the goal... $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

YBNORMAL wrote:

This is why Jazz fans make my stomach turn..... It's been this way for 30 years with Jazz fans, complain, whine, blame someone else.... yada, yada, yada... Where's the talk of all the calls the Jazz get at home?? Blame the officials....yea, that's it :unsure: Please.... Man, I've tried to like the Jazz this year and I just can't do it, watch Boozer throw three shoulders into his defender, no call, watch AK47 tag Vuya..what's his name with a sharp elbow, foul on Vuya....

Man I hope the Jazz lose, I want to like the team but the fans are a bunch of babies.......

What do you expect? BYU fans have been whining about officiating forever too and the fan base is pretty much the same on this site. It drives me crazy that BYU fans whine about it. It makes us look stupid.

Conosticator wrote:

Slugger wrote:

NBA officiating has been a joke for years now. Stern and the rest of the NBA brass are really discrediting the intelligence of basketball fans by the way the NBA is officiated. Millions of fans, many who played or coached basketball from their youth to adulthood, know what the rules are and know what is a violation of those rules. Yet, in the NBA, rules are "flexible", depending on the situation. Which totally invalidates the rules and leaves them meaningless.

What specifically bugged me about last night's game was the constant physical contact intiated by Fisher and Vujacic. They were constantly making contact with Williams, Korver, Harpring and Price yet only a couple of calls were made. Yet, if the Jazz so much as breath on their guy they draw the whistle. Frustrating! But, refs aside, the Jazz hurt themselves. Boozer needs to go strong to the basket against that wuss Gasol. And both Boozer and Mehmo keep leaving the backdoor open. When Kobe (or any other guy) drives to the basket, there is always a realease valve coming from the wing, usually Odom or Gasol. The Jazz seem to keep forgetting about that and leaving the backdoor open for easy dunks. Gasol's points come off easy plays where the defense breaks down. Odom is a fantastic athlete and ballplayer, but even his points come on easy dunks, layups and put-backs due to defensive breakdowns. I still think they have a shot at winning the series but they have to work on those things to get it done.

Solution for the Jazz(choose one):
1. Get yourself a "super star" player, or :ohmy:
2. Move to a bigger TV market, :P

and you to may have the honor of having the refs call a biased game in your favor to help you make it to the next round of the playoffs.

Only alternative:
Be so talented that even biased refs are unable to throw the game. :angry:

It's the NBA guys. Remember the goal... $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ :silly:

I would rather lose a game by 20 points and have it be reffed fair then win one by any number! and have it given to us

Actually, in this series, I thought last nights game was the most evenly officiated. Both teams shot about the same amount of foul shots up until the Jazz were forced to foul to extend the game. Both teams got away with a lot around the basket. I was worried because Steve Javie was calling the game, until I remembered that Javie hates Jackson as much as he hates Sloan.

Of all the things I was complaining about, the only call that I think that may have cost the Jazz was Gasol's push in the back on Memo that put the Lakers up by 5, but Boozer got away with that during the game as well. The Jazz missed layups, had costly turnovers, and couldn't get rebounds when it really mattered. Missed layups cost more teams games than anything else.

Jazz fans should be optimistic. They played a terrible game, yet they were right there at the end with a chance to win. Gone is the deer in headlights look that they had for the first 1 1/2 games. Jazz and Laker fans, get used to seeing these teams play in the playoffs for years to come. Both teams are young, talented, and will only get better as they continue to play together.

AlaskaCougarFan wrote:

you people are such homers... the refs do not decide games... the players and coaches decide games... if the players put the ref's in a position to "lose the game" with a bad call, it's the players fault for not being ahead by more. I HATE when people blame refs.. I used to be like you.. blame the refs, hassle the refs.. but ya know what... it's NEVER lopsided.

Not another one of these types of comments. Even refs believe that they change the outcomes of the game. I was a ref for 5 years and I guarantee that I gave games to teams that didn't deserve to win by making bad calls. And I was always considered one of the best refs.

The game was not won or lost on one call last night. The game was lost on a foul count of 31-20. Even though the Jazz have outscored the Lakers significantly in the paint this series (a stat that correlates nearly 100% to the team that shoots the most foul shots). Even though the Jazz have dominated the Lakers in rebounding (another highly correlative stat to free throw shooting). The Lakers have shot 40 more foul shots than the Jazz so far this series - one of the worst disparities EVER in the playoffs. I can't find and don't remember the stat exactly, but I read somewhere that the Lakers are easily on their way at setting a new playoff and-one record. Just ask Kobe and Farmar about two of their and-ones in the 4th quarter where neither of them were physically touched. This series is WAY out of whack. Any time you get the commissioner talking about how excited he is for a Lakers-Celtics match-up, you have to wonder about the fairness of the NBA in this whole thing.