The OKC Thunder Met Company Man Joey Crawford in Game 3

Except the Thunders and Spurs and Hawks of the NBA’s world never get the good side of bad calls.

It’s part of why I put the NBA in my WGAF file years ago.

If someone has watched two similar and consistent officiating efforts in the NBA playoffs or NCAA tournament in the past decade, send me a link. Calls change quarter to quarter and half to half. Your round of 32 game is a scrum and your sweet sixteen game has 3 starters with 2 fouls by the first TV time-out. Home team gets benefit of the doubt, and the further they lag in the series, the more doubt they get, if they’re important enough to the ratings.

I’ve been watching college and pro basketball for 30 years now, and I still don’t know play to play what’s going to get called or not. That’s ridiculous. It’s why I don’t watch nearly as much as I used to.

harder than Harden “fouled” (and I use that term only because I have to) combined on ALL 5 fouls. It was one of the most OBVIOUS displays of attempting to determine the outcome of the game I have ever seen. Mistakes are happen, but the NBA needs a compeling series outside Boston/Philly. They know SA will sweep the Clips and the Heat are now going down in 5 so they wanted to manufacture a series despite the Thunder’s clear dominance.

Not a fan of either team or the NBA for several years partly because of this.

you’re rooting for the thunder, which is why the officiating seemed one sided to you, but it was clearly bad both ways. it was a war zone in the paint, with no fouls being called either way, while ticky tack fouls were called on the perimeter all day long.

i like the thunder as well, but the officiating wasn’t one-sided, it was just bad. the thunder themselves had 28 FT’s, so it’s not as if they weren’t getting calls either. and saying that harden fouls sparingly is false. though he’s done a good job of staying out of foul trouble this year, he was extremely foul prone for the last two years in okc. and honestly, after watching him repeatedly put his head down, run full speed at the hoop and then flail his arms to pick up a foul every time, i’ve lost sympathy for him.

i’m not trying to defend the officiating, it was horrible. but it’s not as cut and dry as everyone here seems to believe. if you really want to see one-sided officiating, i’ll refer you to game 5 of the heat/mavs in 06 and game 2 of lakers/celtics in 08.

D Fischer needs to do what he does best: a hard “screen” on joey and send a message

Lakers shot 25% more foul shots, on some completely bogus, phantom, calls. It was a Joey Crawford special. Scipio’s column reads like my texts to friends last night. I always laugh when small market teams screw the nba ratings, because the deck is always stacked against them.

seriously, after his history in the league, he should have been suspended indefinitely and/or arrested for assault and battery.

would keep the game honest.

Basketball is filled with arbitrary fouls. You could call a foul on every play at any time.

That’s why I havent watched a game in years, and have no desire to do so.

What a joke.

watching it for 25 years. No longer respect it.

any early thoughts on the inevitable Thunder vs. Spurs matchup?

It had been my thought that the Spurs would struggle against a team that can initate offense with 3 different perimeter stars but given their own offensive dominance and Timmy’s rejuvenation I’m now doubtful that OKC will handle Pop’s chess moves well enough to secure victory.

I’m guessing SA tries to put the games into the hands of Westbrook’s decision making and hope that he throws up more 9-24’s than 10-15’s.

Also curious about how the Thunder’s excellent half-court defense and Ibaka handle the Spurs offense. I’m guessing they’ll need to keep Ibaka on Duncan much of the time, and the Spurs have been killing it with backdoor cuts and 3’s set up by Tim’s passing. There are no good answers for this team. It might be the most underrated squad of the last several years.

Is a bit overdone. It’s mostly either older people who have this attitude, “In the good ol’ days, it was so much better…” even though some teams threatened to turn the NBA into a thugfest back then and still had bad officiating (as if MJ never got a pass), or it’s people who are bitter that their team lost.

I’m not saying the officiating in the NBA is great, but I have yet to hear a good argument that if the NBA fixes game, what the heck they’ve been thinking about allowing the ratings-killing Spurs to make and win the Finals four times. Furthermore, we just witnessed a hilariously bad flagrant foul call against Ron Artest (World Peace), and then the refs hit both him and Kobe for complaining about that hilariously bad call. If the NBA really wanted to fix games, that seems rather puzzling that such bad officiating goes against Hollywood’s team who is fighting to extend the series.