Beaneball

I am sick to goddamn death of the referees in the NBA. Yes, I'm emotional about the fact that the Lakers got robbed of this game, that they got called for six more fouls (20 more Utah free throws) despite playing their entire offensive game at the Utah rim. The referees didn't entirely lose the game for L.A. (eleven missed free throws, Kobe's back, and the disappearing Jordan Farmar did that), but they sure as hell helped. Let's review the bad calls on both sides this game.

DJ Mbenga's completely clean block in the third quarter that was called a foul. This one wasn't even close, there was no body contact, no arm contact, nothing. It was utterly inexplicable. The Kyle Korver phantom elbow on Sasha in overtime -- Sasha sold it, but there was zero contact on the play. The overtime play where Fisher put his shoulder sideways into Deron Williams's chest, and yet Williams got hit with a foul. (I'm more ok with that call as a "quit flopping" foul on Williams, because it wasn't an offensive foul -- but it should have just been a no-call.) The most egregious one of all, Ronny's "flagrant 2." What on earth did the refs see? There was body contact and a swipe across the arms. Ronny's a big guy, so Price took a hard fall to the floor that looked worse than it was because he bounced his head. There was no head contact by Ronny, he was going for the block so it wasn't unnecessary, and it certainly wasn't excessive. Where on earth do they get calling any flagrant, much less a flagrant 2? I demand an apology to Ronny, to the team, to Lakers fans, and to NBA fans everywhere for this atrocious call. The referees were intimidated by the Utah crowd and the Utah players, especially Matt Harpring, who swarmed them, demanding a call. Rule change request: that's a technical foul. Players don't get to ask for flagrants, and they certainly don't get to run up on the refs like that.

Oh, and how about Ronnie Price's "block" of Luke Walton's breakaway. He got the ball cleanly, in terms of not getting arm, but his body just flew right through Walton's. That's the definition of a foul. He knocked Walton to the floor by flying into him. How do you not call that? Oh, and the Kyle Korver travel in the fourth quarter when he switched his pivot foot out on the wing, Phil Jackson flew up off the bench (the play was right in front of him), but no call. Carlos Boozer's shove (not tiny push, not subtle; Carlos Boozer doesn't do subtle; he gets away with full-on pushes and shoves the entire game) on Derek Fisher on a screen late in the game.

This was just atrocious, and it's nothing new. Half the flagrants this postseason (and I've seen almost every playoff game so far) weren't flagrants in February. Double technicals are handed out like candy instead of the referees actually making an effort to determine if one player doesn't really deserve one. Blatant travels are missed (and not just the hop-step style, or the LeBron to the bucket style, but switched pivot feet). Offensive fouls abound when guys are running in under the driver after he's already started off the ground. And the clock! Forget about the atrocious rule that resulted in an unjustified three for the Pistons the other night. What about the numerous clock problems and technical malfunctions? We're in the 21st century! This stuff doesn't happen anymore!

One last word on the Jazz -- I said it after Friday's game, and I say it now. They hit their jumpers, they got the benefit of every doubt from the referees, they got L.A.'s backup center and hit man tossed, Kobe was visibly weakened (the Kirilenko block from behind in overtime doesn't happen if Kobe's 100% because he stuffs that ball instead of trying to lay it up), Fisher got hit with early fouls again ... and it still took overtime to win the game! It still took the Lakers forgetting team offense and going to a guy playing at 60% on every possession in overtime for the Jazz to pull it out!

A word on Pau: he does complain too much, but at this point, the refereeing on him is getting downright bizarre. He's a skilled post player who spends the entire game in the paint. He took sixteen shots and grabbed ten rebounds. And he only shot two foul shots! He shot zero on Friday! What is the deal? Okur, who spends the entire game 20 feet from the basket, shot six. Kirilenko shot nine. Kobe took 33 shots, with at least half of those coming in the lane, maybe more, and he shot only ten. How on earth does Andrei Kirilenko shoot as many free throws as Kobe, when Kirilenko is the one who plays on the team that fouls more than anyone in the league? How does this happen?

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in L.A. Lakers at 21:21 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

With Mike D'Antoni now in New York, is it automatic that LeBron is going there in 2010? James could average 50-10-12 in that system -- and given that he plays his best defense as a help guy coming over to make ridiculously athletic blocks and steals, the up-tempo game might help his defense as well.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Basketball at 10:48 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

I hope the Jazz fans are really excited about this win, because it took ridiculous games from their three stars, terrible shooting and ball-handling by the Lakers, two early fouls on Derek Fisher, and a real adjustment in the first half by the officials, from calling everything in the first two games to calling nothing (before returning to the call-everything mode in the second half). All of this to win by five, and even then only because a horrible play on the final jump ball where Luke Walton just threw the ball away after getting exactly the tip L.A. wanted from Pau Gasol.

The Lakers deserved to lose this game, and the Jazz earned their win, for all of the above reasons. But you know what? When you only lose by five, despite doing everything wrong while the other team does everything right, you're the better team. The only question is whether the Lakers can regroup on Sunday, stop fumbling the ball away every other possession, and stop missing layups when you're not bailed out by the officials.

Really just a frustrating, frustrating game. Did Okur or Boozer miss a single contested jump shot? (Obviously they did, but it sure didn't feel like it. Every time you looked up, they were hitting a 20-footer with Lamar Odom's hand in their face.)

So what's the prescription for Sunday? Kobe: don't go 0-6 from three. Sasha Vujacic and Jordan Farmar: don't combine for 0-9 shooting. Referees: Pau Gasol works all game inside against a team that fouls more than anyone in the league; he seriously didn't shoot a single free throw in this game? Really? Pau: turnovers! Lamar: turnovers! Phil: don't be scared of Derek Fisher's two fouls; Jordan Farmar is a good player, but he's overmatched in this series because that position needs to guard Deron Williams, and Farmar can't do that. Fisher started with two fouls, and then, at the end of the game, you know how many fouls he had? Still two. It's not like Fisher stopped Williams, but he certainly did better on him than Farmar did. So in short, Phil, Fisher can play with fouls. If the offense is churning out the points, then you can sit Fisher, because the Jazz can't run with the Lakers. But if the offense is sputtering like it was in the first half tonight, Fisher has to be in the game.

One final note: the Lakers only lost one quarter tonight. The problem is they lost that quarter, the second, by nine, while they only won the second half by four, and tied the first quarter. They got seriously outplayed over those 12 minutes, and could only play more or less even with the Jazz for the other 36. That's on the bench mob, since they were playing that quarter, and Phil played the starters (more or less) the rest of the way, once he figured out that his reserves couldn't play the game tonight.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in L.A. Lakers at 23:49 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Ariza still not healed; seeing specialist today | The Lakers Nation

What on earth is up with these Laker injuries?

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in L.A. Lakers at 18:18 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Why, when we hear about a survey in which a foreigner is voted "most popular person" in their home country, do we respond with a surprised, "More popular than their president!"? I can name approximately 100 million Americans who are more popular than our President. Why would we expect other countries to be different?

(Prompted by hearing on ESPN: "Manu Ginobli was recently voted the most popular person in Argentina, more than the president!")

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Basketball at 23:05 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Jeff Van Gundy is a freaking genius. Here are his three proposals for flopping:

1. If the referee thinks it's an exaggeration of the contact, even if he thinks it's also a foul, call no foul;
2. Review of every game tape to determine how often flops happen: points assigned for flopping; upon a certain number of points accumulated through the season, suspension;
3. If you're suspended, you also have to wear a scarlet F on your jersey so the referees know who the floppers are.

JVG referred to this last proposal as "a little off the wall", and then Mike Breen teased him about it, but you know what? Nobody likes this flopping stuff. Nobody likes that a 6'9", 260 pound beast named LeBron James gets a little contact from Rajon Rondo and throws his arms around like a Mack truck hit him. It's not just LeBron of course; he's just (a) my favorite topic; (b) the guy who prompted the Van Gundy rant. But the problem precisely is that everyone does it, with a few exceptions: Kevin Garnett doesn't really do it; Shaq's another one. But name another star, or role player, or 12th man, and they'll fall to the floor acting like they got shot at the least contact.

Along the same lines, the referees have to continue to get more careful about the offensive players initiating the contact -- if the defender has his arms up and you jump into them, no foul! If you draw the defender into the air and then jump into his body (a Kobe special, I'll admit), no foul! The referees were supposedly emphasizing this recently, but from watching the last few weeks, it seems like they've gone back to the bad old Reggie Miller days at times.

Oh, and I hate the "if you hit a guy after he's released his shot, it's a shooting foul" rule. If you run into the guy as you're closing out on his jump shot, that should be a loose-ball foul if the shot doesn't go in and an and-one if it does. None of this shooting foul nonsense.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Basketball at 19:39 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Bynum may undergo surgery on left knee | The Lakers Nation

That's just terrible news. I mean, maybe not because we're talking about a 'scope, but really? We still haven't figured out what's wrong in there? He hurt it in January! What's going on?

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in L.A. Lakers at 11:37 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

ESPN - Suns coach D'Antoni talks to Bulls, moves closer to leaving - NBA

It looks more and more like Mike D'Antoni will in fact be headed to Chicago. As I said before, this is a solid second-best (for the league, for us as fans) situation, certainly better on the whole than him going to the Knicks (with whom Marc Stein reports that he spoke, but it's apparently not really on the radar for him to go there).

I was down on Joakim Noah as a high draft pick because I just didn't think he had the skill to play in the league as a star. I thought he was the new Anderson Varejao. Having watched him with the Bulls a few times this year, I was clearly wrong, and I think Mike D'Antoni's system would be just the thing to make him incredibly valuable: he's a big man who runs the floor, finishes, and, most importantly, can dish to teammates like no one's business. He's a different player than Boris Diaw, but his utility to a fast-breaking, high-octane team is similar: you don't give up anything on offense because he can facilitate on the run or on the block, but he's big enough to at least nominally guard opposing centers and power forwards.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Basketball at 10:21 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0)

Ric Bucher is reporting that Darius Songaila is suspended for tonight's game for scratching LeBron in the face. The Cavs are mad because LeBron got away with throwing a clearly deliberate elbow into the face of Andray Blatche in Game 1. The Cavs win this argument, in my mind. That elbow was the most blatant thing I've seen in a long time that hasn't been followed by any actual official response.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Basketball at 19:05 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Ok, wait, that wasn't actually just a Def Leppard / Tim McGraw song to open tonight's Wizards-Cavs game, was it? Please?

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Basketball at 19:05 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

ESPN - Coaching carousel: D'Antoni aiming for Bulls? - NBA

First, a clarification about the Bucks: Scott Skiles is the new coach there. The Kelvin Sampson thing I mentioned yesterday is about him joining the team as an assistant. I had forgotten that Skiles had been hired (or maybe I never even knew), so I assumed that Sampson was being looked at as a head coach.

Second, and more importantly, the story above says that D'Antoni is apparently not an option for Dallas, which makes me sad, but, as the title says, he could end up with the Bulls, which would make me only slightly less happy than him coaching the Mavericks.

Third, there's apparently some talk that Flip Saunders might not be back with Detroit next year, which strikes me as crazy. I don't really have an opinion of him as a coach, but the Pistons have been a very good team under him, and he's done a good job of working in the young talent they have there, so it's not clear what the justification for a change could be.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Basketball at 09:34 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Time for the Player A, Player B game.

Player A's rookie stat line:

72 games, 71 starts, 37.5 minutes, 19.2 points on .414 shooting (15.2 shots per game), .318 on 4.1 threes, .747 on 7.2 free throws, 1.1 steals, 1.1 blocks, 3.5 turnovers, 3.7 rebounds, 3.9 assists, 18 wins.

Player B's rookie stat line:

80 games, 80 starts, 34.6 minutes, 20.3 points on .430 shooting (17.1 shots per game), .288 on 2.6 threes, .873 on 5.6 free throws, 1.0 steals, 0.9 blocks, 2.9 turnovers, 4.4 rebounds, 2.4 assists, 20 wins.

One of those has been a sixth man (albeit a very good one) for the last five years. The other is supposed to save basketball. Yes, Player A is Jerry Stackhouse and Player B is Kevin Durant.

To be fair, I left out one key piece of information: Stackhouse turned 21 his first year in the league, while Durant turned 19 just before the season started.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Basketball at 17:26 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

The NBA coaching carousel is looking really interesting right now. Avery Johnson is out in Dallas, Mike D'Antoni could be out in Phoenix, and New York and Chicago are looking for coaches. The Miami Heat job looked like it was going to be open, but Pat Riley has promoted Erik Spoelstra from within to replace him. Larry Brown has already replaced Sam Vincent in Charlotte, and Sam Mitchell might be out in Toronto. Oh, and George Karl is in trouble in Denver as well. Milwaukee's job is also open, for what it's worth, with Kelvin Sampson apparently headed there. Not that anyone cares. Do they still play basketball there?

Do any of these jobs make sense for Avery Johnson? If we want to keep ruining the Suns, as Steve Kerr seems determined to do, I guess Johnson could go there and have Steve Nash just stand around and shoot threes off of kickouts from Shaq. New York would probably be a terrible place for him: this was already a boring team, and Johnson loves the boring, grind-it-out basketball game. Plus, he'd probably murder Eddy Curry by December. The last thing the Bulls need is another taskmaster whose idea of beautiful basketball is 85-79 with three punches landed. Maybe Avery could do a good job in Denver. Imagine if the guys in front of Marcus Camby actually focused a little bit on defense. Imagine if Eduardo Najera wasn't allowed to shoot threes. On the other hand, imagine if the four tremendous offensive players on that team (Iverson, Carmelo, Kleiza, JR Smith) were shackled. So I don't know.

Mike D'Antoni would be awesome in New York, by contrast, not because of the players there, but because at least it'd be fun. Do we want to waste a good coach in such a bad situation? It'll be getting better now that Isiah is out and Donnie Walsh is in, but it's going to take a while with all those long, untradeable contracts on the roster. No, I think the most intriguing place for D'Antoni is Dallas. Wouldn't that be great? It's like the Pistons moving from Larry Brown to Flip Saunders, except way more fun. Kidd would be useful again, Dirk could maximize his end-of-peak value, Josh Howard would be the new Shawn Marion, and Jason Terry and Jerry Stackhouse would hit hundreds of open jumpers. I'd feel bad for my Knicks friend fans, but I really want to see D'Antoni in Dallas. And you know who'd be crazy enough to pull this off? Mark Cuban.

If D'Antoni's not going to Dallas, I'd like to see him in Chicago. The talent there is versatile, it's not particularly big or slow (except Aaron Gray), there are some good shooters ... in short, it looks like his system could take them from boring and bad to exciting and a contender for a top-four spot in the East. In Denver, he'd just be redundant. He's a better coach than Karl, probably, but when you fire a coach, it seems, you're usually looking for a new style. Karl to D'Antoni isn't a new style.

So who should we want in Phoenix? How about Jeff Van Gundy? He'll be a Steve Kerr kind of guy, with defense and posting up and all kinds of good stuff, but I trust he's smart enough to let Steve Nash do his thing at the same time. I'd miss him on the broadcasts, but that's a minor worry. Or maybe Tom Thibodeau, who's been talked up a lot as Boston's defensive coach this year and is a long-time Van Gundy understudy?

If New York doesn't end up with one of these guys, Donnie Walsh could do worse than make a Rick Carlisle reunion happen.

I wonder what assistant coaches, outside of Thibodeau, might be candidates. Mario Elie of Dallas? How about making Igor Kokoskov (Detroit) the first foreign head coach (that I'm aware of)? Brian Shaw from the Lakers?

(Did you know that Scott Layden is an assistant coach in Utah? How humiliating is that?)

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Basketball at 23:10 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

So Paul Pierce's "menacing gesture" from Game 3 was, in fact, seen by the league, and he got hit with a $25,000 fine for it. Danny Ainge says that Pierce makes this sign all the time, and that it stands for "blood, sweat, and tears", not for any gang activity. Doc Rivers tried to make light of the incident, saying that he'll "be careful when [he's] giving signals to the players" from now on. Rivers apparently also said that he'd interpret the sign as "Ok". That's consistent with holding the sign so that the fingers are vertical, not horizontal, the way Pierce had it (and the chart of gang signs I linked to in the last post).

Some news stories go so far as to say that the entire team has used it as an internal signal this year. It isn't clear what it could possibly mean at that point to Al Horford, though, nor is it really helping Paul Pierce's case that the first word in the three-part signal is "blood". The fact that Pierce does the sign before every game, as Ainge says, isn't exactly inconsistent with it being a gang sign, either.

I'm not sure what the real deal is here. I don't know Paul Pierce. I don't know anyone who knows Paul Pierce. But I'm not sure this thing should just quietly go away until some adequate resolution on exactly what happened is reached.

I just saw David Stern questioned by Cheryl Miller on TNT. He first defused the question with a joke ("What was that we did? Ask Stu!"), then basically refused to answer: a menacing gesture is whatever Stu Jackson determines it is. The reality, according to Stern, is that he doesn't want players walking toward each other's benches and making any gestures. That's all well and good, but there are a million gestures Pierce could have made that likely wouldn't have been labeled "menacing" and likely wouldn't have resulted in such a hefty fine. For instance, what about that most unambiguous of gestures, the middle finger? Is that menacing? Unlikely. So clearly there are some gestures that are menacing and some that are not, but Stern refused to say what the menacing ones were, likely because he didn't want to admit that he and Jackson thought Pierce threw up a gang sign.

Oh, on another note, Brendan Haywood keeps endearing himself to me:

But first, Haywood puckered his face up like a baby and did a mocking imitation of James.

"Oooh, they're trying to hurt me," Haywood said before turning serious. "C'mon man, this is the playoffs. He wears 23 and he wants to be Michael Jordan. I respect that because he's a great player. But look what Mike went through. Mike got fouled way worse than this. You know what I'm saying? Nobody is trying to hurt him. Everybody is trying to play basketball, trying to win, trying to play tough. Leave it alone."

Haywood also said that he can't remember a player ever complaining so much about physical play.

"When I was growing up, I never heard that," Haywood said. "I never heard Magic [Johnson] say that. Or Mike. Or Larry [Bird]."

From here.

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Basketball at 00:07 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

So Al Horford, after hitting a big jumper late in the Hawks-Celtics game last night, threw some words at Paul Pierce, who was on the floor, on his way back on defense. It was straight taunting, no question, and Horford should have been T'd up. Can the NBA impose retroactive T's? Maybe fine him? I wouldn't be surprised to see it happen. It really was a textbook case.

However, what came after was the really crazy part: Paul Pierce started walking back up the court toward Horford. He didn't look like he was talking, but right around midcourt, Brian Scalabrine caught up with him and started to pull him back to the Celtics bench (they had called a timeout). Pierce then decided to throw up one of these:



Now, wait just a minute. Was that one of these? In particular, the piru blood sign? (See here for more on the pirus.) There is some speculation on some message boards that this was in fact a blood sign. See also.

So, um, bets on whether Al Horford lives to see his sophomore slump?

Posted by Jason Wojciechowski in Basketball at 13:36 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)