The Official 2006 NBA Playoffs Thread

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Hmm. All this about about the league helping the Heat out reminds me of the questionable calls that got the (at that point, stumbling) Mav's into the Finals in the first place.

Yes? No?

I believe the officiating goes both ways.
 
The OOTS said:


Cuban got his sheckles.

I now think the NBA tilted this series toward the Heat. A few suspect calls at critical points in close games slanted this toward the Heat. I think Dallas is the overall better team. But The Heat have more marketable players than the Mavs at this point. Longtime players like Walker, Zo, Williams, Payton finally reaching the pinnacle.. Superstars like Shaq and the Jordanesque Wade pairing up for a championship run. Pat Riley returning to coaching to win another championship. All great stories. The NBA is a business and they like to flaunt their superstars and hype the stories. Dallas didn't have as much going for them as far as 'good stories' and marketable players.

you mean the Dirk-Hasselhoff story wasn't NBA gold :wink:

I declare 2006 Year of the Hasselhoff.
 
Hewson said:
The Miami fans holding the pictures of Hasselhoff was hilarious.

oly_full.getty-57540056cc134_nba_finals_ga_2_05_56_am.jpg


:up: I know this guy. :lol:
 
WildHoneyAlways said:
Hmm. All this about about the league helping the Heat out reminds me of the questionable calls that got the (at that point, stumbling) Mav's into the Finals in the first place.

Yes? No?

I believe the officiating goes both ways.

Yes...but why?
Let the players decide.

This series kinda remined me of the Superbowl. Referees making favorable calls/bad judgment in favor of one team to swing momentum. That's just the way I saw it.

BTW, I'm neither a Mavs fan nor a Heat fan. I was just a casual observer.

I'm a Warriors fan :reject:
 
Watch the 3rd angle (shot from the top of the basket).
before Wade rises up, Daniels swipes (quite gently) his forearm. As I said, and Hubie Brown also noted (in more TV friendly terms) it was a pansy foul, didn't prevent or even hinder Wade from getting up a clean shot, but he made contact, and Wade scored on the continuation.
Daniels should have grabbed Wade's forearm once he made the contact and heard the whistle and prevented the easy score.
Sorry, but that was a foul. And the swiping motion just makes the ref take more notice.
 
That Eric Folkerth lives in a nice world, yeah we'll use instant replay on all foul calls in the NBA, and reverse calls made "on the field" (does he know its played indoors and not on grass), games will take 6 hours.
And he always refers to daniels as "Daniel".
You're using this clown to back up your arguments?

I watched his video and read his blog, and stand by my statement that the only legit beef Dallas had of those calls was the one where Wade ran into Dirk.

In Phantom foul #2, he says Wade elbows Harris, does he see Harris, feet moving, bumping with Wade the entire drive...guess what, thats a defensive foul, plus the final contact is inside the circle.

Heat won, Mavs lost, Refs were not great like in the SuperBowl, but Dallas can blame only themselves. The Refs didn't force Dallas to start the 3rd quarter 2 for 16 or have them tighten up over the last 6 minutes of game 3, or make the decision to have the best player inbound the ball with 1 second left in game 3 rather than be on the floor to shoot.
 
This apathetic mindset a lot of people have regarding the refs is only going to hurt the quality of play in this league.

Before I go further, allow me to make a few things clear:

The Mavs were infuriating in the second half of last night's game. When the whole world knew that they should be taking the ball inside, they kept settling for jumpshots. Furthermore, I didn't see the fire in them, the fuel that drives you to win. They seemed a little passive. You shouldn't be passive in Game 6 of the Finals. Their performance in the second half of last night's game was not the performance of a team that deserved to win the title, however much I favored them(neither team is 'my' team, but I was routing for the Mavs).

However, their performance(or lack thereof) does NOT, in any way, excuse what these refs are doing.

Every single call that involved Dwyane Wade in any way, went Wade's way. That doesn't mean that every call was blatently wrong or that every call should've gone against Wade. It just means that every call that was legitimately questionable in any way, went Wade's way. This is not a coincidence.

I really think any objective fan can look at Games 5 and 6 and say that the refs were undeniably calling in favor the Heat. This shouldn't be happening, but it's been happening for years. Player A commits a foul against Player B, but because Player A is flashier and more popular, the foul is called against Player B instead. I really think any objective fan can see that there are big problems with the officiating in today's NBA.

But the fans of teams that are benefitting or have benefitetted from those problems, are not objective, and a lot of the time, they refuse to admit that the refs are helping them. And that is infuriating to me.

None are more guilty of this than fans of the Lakers during their 2000-02 championship reign. Shaq commited probably 20-25 offensive fouls per game and got called for maybe 2 or 3 of them. Kobe got everything as well. Couldn't breath on him without getting called for it. Even their role players - Horry, Fox, Fisher - had everything go their way. Now, today I look back and appreciate that those Lakers teams were very good teams, despite the poor officiating. But what I can't get past is the Lakers fans that absolutely would not admit under any circumstance that the Lakers had help from the refs in every single game, and every single series. I mean, it's not like you'd be turning your back on your team or being a bad fan if you admitted it. It doesn't make your team any less talented. But to admit that your team had help from the refs is to be a man(or a woman). To claim the the officiating in a game like Game 6 of the 2002 WCF vs the Kings was 'fine' or anything of the sort - when the whole basketball world knows that that game was one of the worst officiated games in the history of professional sports(remember Kobe putting Bibby in a headlock and Bibby getting called for a foul?) - is to be a coward.

Last night and today, Heat fans are now getting their first taste of a championship. And the Heat, too, were helped by the refs. Unquestionable, non-negotiable, albiet not quite on the level of the help those Lakers teams got. But Wade was getting every single call his way, while similtaniously being allowed to commit backcourt violations, travel, commit fouls, etc, without getting called for it. Alonzo got every single block, no fouls or goaltends were called. Etc etc etc. Now, Heat fans can either be like those Lakers fans and refuse to admit that the Heat got help, or they can be adults and admit it. It's up to them. It doesn't mean you have to enjoy your championshp any less, it doesn't mean you have to love your team any less. It just means you have to be honest with yourselves.

Moving on...what's even more infuriating is the commissioner's reaction to the officiating problems of recent years. Now, I'm not going to sit here and say that I think David Stern is behind it, fixing series' from the league front office. I really don't think that's the case at all. I just think refs are either incompetent or intimitated by the prospect of not giving big, popular stars who have legions of fans the calls.

The only thing Stern is guilty of is turning a blind eye to it. Every time he is interviewed he is asked about it, and every time he just grins that goofy-ass grin of his and says, 'we have the best refs in the business'. That's bullshit. He knows it's bullshit. He knows that everybody knows that it's bullshit. But he says it anyway. That's what pisses me off about Stern. He's done a lot of good, even great, things for this league since he took over in 1984, but this officiating thing is one of the bigger problems facing the league, and he seems content to just sit and do absolutely jack fucking shit about it, and that, to me, is unforgivable. To let a problem that directly and consistantly effects the quality of the gameplay and competition in the league to just continue to exist without doing AN-Y-THING about it...that's unforgivable.

That's all.

Congrats to the Heat.
 
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As a devoted Heat fan all I can say is GO HEAT!!! They deserved it in my opinion... Congrats to the Mavs for an awesome season!
 
inmyplace13 said:
Any fan would be lucky to have Cuban as their team's owner.

No owner cares more about winning and less about his own bottom line than Cubes. His outspoken persona may get on some people's nerves, but I'm damn thankful he owns my favorite team, because none of this is possible without him.


Embarrassing? Not at all.

coughcoughcoughgeorgesteinbrennerdoesthesamethingandeveryonehateshimcoughcoughcough
 
dallas had every opportunity to win this series and blew it... themselves.

just like san antonio blew it... just like the pistons blew it by sucking so much... just like the knicks blew it by, well, never mind.

game 3... 13 point lead in the 4th quarter.

that's your series.

dallas could not contain the same intensity on defense from that point on as they did in the first two games. riley made some great adjustments to the heat's game plan which managed to open up dwyane wade more, and he took full advantage of it.

let us not forget the impact shaq's presence had on this series. is he shaq of old? no... but who was the guy who was getting double and triple teamed in each and every game? shaq. shaq's mere presence on the court kept dallas from double teaming dwyane wade, leaving him in single coverage, and he completely dominated.

my two favorite players in the league are shaq and dirk. but dirk, you completely shit the bed this series, my friend. he simply didn't show up. even in the two dallas wins it was really terry who propelled their offense. even last night, for three quarters we finally saw angry dirk... the dirk that's the best player in the league... and then crunch time comes along and he goes 0-4 from the field, has a huge turnover, and gets only 2 points in the entire 4th quarter. larry bird? i think not... but hey, he's still not 30... he's still got time to prove it.

oh... and as for dwyane wade the second coming of michael jordan? well... he certainly gets jordan's benefit of the doubt when it comes to foul calls... but michael jordan would never have missed those two free throws at the end of game 6. so no, dwyane... you're not michael jordan. you're simply dwyane wade... and there's really nothing wrong with that.

much like when the colts lose to the pats, there's a lot of whining about how the games were stolen. no... not really. yes, there were plenty of questionable calls. it's the nba... there's ALWAYS questionable calls. anyone wanna go check the tape on the hubert davis-scottie pippen foul? you won't find it, 'cause there was no foul. but one was called.

for anyone who's ever actually stepped on the court with a whistle around their neck, it is one of the hardest things to do in all of sports. it's like holding in football... every play is a hold, when do you call it, when do you not. basketball is a contact sport that pretends to not be... you could call a foul/violation every time down the court. i coach my players certain ways to play defense... slap up at the ball, use your outside hand to attempt a shot block, etc. etc. to avoid the perception of a foul... because refs, by default, are blind and stupid... if you slap down or across at a ball, even if you get all ball, it LOOKS like a foul... if you use your inside hand to attempt to block a shot, even if you get all ball, it LOOKS like your body made contact, and you're more than likely to get a foul call evne though you never touched the guy. :shrug: it's not perfect... and there were some horse shit calls in this series. but dallas still had every opportunity to put the series away all by themselves, and they didn't do it. they can only blame themselves.

people have thought the nba is rigged since the whole patrick ewing/frozen envelope rumor in the mid 80s. it's not rigged. refs just suck. but, alas, refs sucking is part of the game. and over the course of 82 games + playoffs, it usually evens out. you just have to hope that the evening out doesn't happen in the last minute of overtime in the nba finals. :shrug:

great teams over-come the adversity. good to mediocre teams fold like a cheap suit.

the mavericks folded... and they folded before the refs even got a chance to fuck up. but they're young, while miami is old. dallas should be able to come back to the finals next season...



... as long as amare stoudamire stays injured :wink:
 
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