See the additional editorial notes at the end for more details about late postings and how they are not going to be a problem any longer.
FROM MAY 11, 2009, TWO DAYS AFTER GAME THREE OF THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
Game Three was "won" by the Nuggets 106-105; the Nuggets took a 3-0 lead in the best of seven series with this win. For information about how and why this win was probably not really a win, see the previous Report of this series.
Many of the Mavs fans on the Mavs forum were saying that with the series 3 games to 0, game 4 and any subsequent games were meaningless. On the one hand, they had a valid point, since no team has ever come back from being down 3-0, out of roughly 60 such series. But my bleeding heart and my brain that kept repeating to me that the Nuggets are grossly overrated, wanted the Mavericks to at least win game four at home, which they did, and then hopefully game five in Denver, which they did not.
Originally Posted by DubOverdose
Not gonna happen. Won't matter either, we'd just be delaying the inevitable 2nd round loss to the Nuggets.
Oh ye of little faith. Nothing is inevitable in sports, a lesson which I have had to learn the hard way this year. When this season started, it was supposed to be inevitable that the Nuggets would either not make the playoffs at all, or be quickly bounced in the first round again. It wasn't just me; that was the outlook of a huge majority of basketball watchers.
So that did not happen, and the moral is that nothing is inevitable in sports. That's one of the reasons I do sports instead of politics and economics. Inevitable is boring after awhile.
What if the Mavericks were to win games 4 and 5 now? The series would be 3-2 Nuggets, and the Nuggets would almost certainly still win the series. But had game 3 been awarded to the Mavericks as it was supposed to be, the series would be 3-2 Mavericks, and obviously, you would never know in that case whether the Nuggets are legitimately in the West finals or not. Probably they would be illegitimate, illegal, whatever word like that you want to use.
Certainly were that to happen (Dallas winning the next two games) I for one would no longer consider the Nuggets as a legitimate West finals team, and although I probably would, I would no longer be under any real obligation to break down how they lose to the Lakers (or the Rockets, for that matter.)
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Someone opened a topic asking why the final seconds of game three, that the NBA admitted was ruined by the botched non-calls on the pair of Antoine Wright intentional fouls on Anthony. My response was:
The main reason why the NBA admitted this was a mistake, whereas most calls or non-calls would never be stated to be a mistake by the League is because this was a special case.
It is a very long tradition in basketball that the team that is leading with just a few seconds left has complete freedom to foul intentionally, or not foul intentionally, whether or not they have a foul to give, as they choose. It's a sort of well deserved award for leading with very little time left.
You may not like that tradition, I may not like it, but it is an important tradition. The referees went against this tradition by not making the call; they in other words cheated the Mavericks out of the traditional advantage given to teams leading with just a very few seconds left.
So the NBA made the statement because they want to make it clear that even though it was botched in this game that the tradition will continue in other games.
FROM MAY 11, 2009, EVENING, DURING GAME 4 OF THE SERIES, WHICH DALLAS WAS TO COME FROM BEHIND AND WIN TO NARROW THE SERIES TO 3 GAMES TO 1.
By this point, virtually the entire Mavericks Board was completely aware that the Nuggets were using the failure of the referees due to laziness or who knows what to call a reasonable percentage of the way above normal (or ordinary) fouling the Nuggets were doing....
Some examples:
I'm sorry, but anyone who pulls the "you can't blame the refs" card is a complete and utter moron.
Is anyone still blaming Wright for not wrapping up Carmelo or shoving him out of bounds? I guess he was right thinking he would get a flagrant for that.
Hell, if Carmelo trips running down the court on a fast break we'll get a flagrant 2, even if no Mav is within 5 feet.
I love how people were defending the crap officiating by saying "it's the playoffs they let them make contact" or "it's the end of the game they don't call things." What's the excuse for this crap? There is none.
It's like that Bill Simmons article about everyone knows the officiating is crap, but none of the commentators or anyone can recognize it.
Was it Carter? I believe it was D. Jones who fouled Bass in that play.
Either way, this officiating is unbelievable. Not saying that the Mavs are playing well or better than the Nuggets, but come on now. Don't be so damn obvious. This is ridiculous.
So how was KMarts foul on Dirk in game 1 not originally called a flagrant?
Seriously...how often they slammed a Mav down like that to interfere a save basket?
And remember anyone Jones-Bass not being a flagrant in game 3?
Wow...its ridiculous.
I want to see Rick Carlisle grab the ball and punt it into the crowd on the next ridiculous call.
I wish the cameras would zoom in on the refs making the calls a little more. They're the true playmakers.
The NBA is rigged. I dk why some people think it's a "conspiracy theory". Just watch the games, the agenda is always discernible.
The worst reffed game, bar none, that I've seen since 2006.
Here is a double quote:
Quote:
Originally Posted by left texas
The officiating might suck, but I wish we would start playing defense like the Nuggets.
We cant? How many flagrants we would get?? NOW we are stopping the easy baskets like Denver did 3 games and now WE get hammered with flagrants for it.
I guess it wouldn't be classy if they refused to come out until that officiating crew is fired and replaced.
Maybe the Mavs can draft some guys straight out of prison or something. If that happens, it will be a shame that I won't be seeing it. The next Mavs loss is the last game of NBA basketball I watch.
lol Mark Cuban's Twitter currently: I just got called for a flagrant 1 for sneezing. Its 2 kleenex and the ball.
No way we could win this series at this situation guys, let em have this one and prepare for next season. But before that i want to have :
1. Carlisle to punt the ball into the crowd for a lame call as suggested by BPo001.
2. Dampier to body slam Kmart and give a kick on the face.
3. Wright to left KMart grimacing in pain with a torn ACL.
4. Hollins to squeez Nene's testicles.
5. Cubes rushing directly to KMart for a straight jab.
I got called for a flagrant because I just touched my Carmelo basketball card.
This great forum is here.
Laugh out loud at some of the above, especially the one about the Dallas owner Marc Cuban Twitter post and the one about how it could be smart for the Mavericks to draft straight out of prison and the one about how the Mavs could get a technical if Carmelo Anthony tripped and fell with no Maverick within five feet. Laugh out loud at these and more.
These numerous the referees are incompetent postings were made in the early part of game 4, which was eventually won by the Dallas Mavericks, despite the lame and basically insane early officiating that unfairly punished Dallas for the sins of Denver, 119-117. Dallas narrowed the series to 3-1 Nuggets with this win.
But in game five two nights later in Denver, the Nuggets played off their crowd and knew full well the referees in Denver were not going to mess with their high foul policy and thus not interfere with their closing down the series. And so Denver won a boring, predictable type of elimination home game over the Mavericks 124-110.
My contribution to the deserved hate fest against the zebras was my best estimation of what exactly was going on....
You see why I hate the way the Nuggets are playing basketball right now? They are trying to change basketball by making it more violent and less decided by skill. So they set a rough tone for this series from the beginning, when Kenyon Martin virtually threw Dirk to the floor.
So between that, the botched call at the end of game 3, and the general high level of roughness of the Nuggets, League headquarters is worried about the potential for payback, a fight, things like that, in game 4. So the referees in this game are given marching orders by NBA headquarters to call as many flagrant and technical fouls as necessary to keep tight control of this game.
So the referees do call a large number of technicals and flagrants in game 4. But who gets them? You guessed it, the Mavericks are hammered with technicals and flagrants, as they try to respond to the Nuggets' disrespect of basketball by getting rougher themselves.
You see how George Karl and the Nuggets are trying to snooker the NBA and basketball? You see how they are getting away with it? By the time the League has responded to the Nuggets' style, it's the Mavericks who are "caught.".
The Nuggets are getting away with trying to change basketball, until and unless the Nuggets are put down by the Lakers or the Rockets.
Only in George Karl's twisted mind was that a flagrant against Linas Kleiza. It was not a flagrant foul in any other series, only this one, for the reasons I just gave you.
ADDED NOVEMBER. 2009
So I ended up playing the fool for predicting, for several moons before the playoffs (as early as February, as I recall) that the referees would see through the Nuggets playing fast and loose with the foul rules, that they would call a lot more fouls on the Nuggets than on the other team in many of the playoff games. What actually happened, to my horror and to the eventual extreme dismay of the Mavericks fans that you just saw, was that the referees were often awed and possibly put into a trance by the Nuggets' fast, energetic, and aggressive defense, and so they cut break after break after break by not calling Nuggets foul after Nuggets foul after Nuggets foul.
New Orleans was unable to react at all to this Denver strategy, which could be called “defensive overdrive,” because they were banged up practically the whole distance up and down their entire roster.
Dallas finally, in game four, decided to do what I had recommended for months that a team do in case, which was supposed to be unlikely but turned out to be anything but, that the referees do come down in favor of the Nuggets' defense and against a reasonable upholding of the foul rules. But by the time Dallas was ready to, in game four, finally do the logical thing to try to offset how the refs were allowing themselves to be played by the Nuggets and thus skewing the game in favor of Denver, the League Office was worried sick that the series might explode into a brawl. So in an ultimate and truly horrible irony, it was Dallas and not Denver that took the brunt of the sudden total reversal of the officiating that occurred in game four, from not very far from “anything goes” to “don’t even think of getting overly rough.”. When the officials, most likely on orders from the League Office, decided to call technicals at the drop of a hat, and to in general call a much tighter game, it was Dallas and not Denver that took the brunt of this.
You think I'm exaggerating by chance? Check this toll out:
Flagrant Fouls: 2 DALLAS ( J Terry 1, J Howard 1 )
Technical Fouls: PLAYERS: 7 DALLAS ( A Wright 1, B Bass 1, E Dampier 1, J Terry 1 ) DENVER ( C Billups 1, C Anthony 1, L Kleiza 1 )
Holy (can't say it): 9 flagrant and technical fouls. There were also 58 regular personal fouls in this game. So there was a grand total of 67 fouls, laugh out loud, George Karl!
You will very, very rarely see an NBA playoff game with that many flagrant fouls, technical fouls, and personal fouls, simply because you will very, very rarely see an NBA coach who believes he can win a Conference or a Championship by intentionally operating a high rate of fouling defense. But George Karl is a reality, not a cartoon character. And he did in fact think that he might win the West and possibly the entire NBA by intentionally operating a high fouling policy. Thus the decision of the League to start raining flagrant and technical fouls when they became nervous that the series could blow up into brawl time.
But let's face it, at least as of the point in time when Denver finally defeated the Mavericks in the subsequent game back in Denver, the Denver Master Plan for 2008-09 had now worked beyond anyone's wildest imaginations. The Nuggets' coaches, including George Karl of course, had successfully played everyone and their uncles for chumps or fools or jerks or you pick a word. Everyone was playing the fool in the face of Karl and the Nuggets 2008-09 outsmarting the officials and eventually even the League.
But oh so fortunately and so sweetly, Kobe Bryant, Phil Jackson, Trevor Ariza, Lamar Odom, Pau Gasol, the various decent Lakers' guards, and the outstanding young big Andrew Bynum were still out there waiting to defend basketball from being changed to a defensive, football type of sport. They would eventually (too slowly for this paranoid Reporter) refuse to be awed and refuse to be played by the Nuggets' defensive overdrive schemes and extreme reliance on fast pace and fast breaks on offense. Kobe Bryant and company, but especially Bryant, and this is an understatement, would tough it out game by game, especially in game three, one of the most masterful Lakers wins in the history of the franchise, when Bryant single handedly allowed the Lakers to survive 103-97 in Denver and take a crucial 2-1 lead in the series. Bryant earned his 4th ring and Phil Jackson his 10th ring in that game alone.
========== Editorial Notes ==========
--The above was largely written in early May, 2009.
--As promised, we are finally posting material written and posted on forums in the spring. Obviously, if you have your own site, you should be posting at least simultaneously on your own site when you for whatever reason post elsewhere. But there has been a bad habit of not doing so, a bad habit that is being beaten down due to new content sharing regulations that have teeth.
========== VIDEO PLAYERS ==========
DALLAS MAVERICKS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER
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DENVER NUGGETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER
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