Friday, June 17, 2005
Ups and Downs of the NBA Finals
It seems less than a week ago when the San Antonio Spurs were invicible. Duncan couldn't be stopped in the paint. Manu was walking on water. Bruce Bowen had tied Rip Hamilton to some train tracks and was just waiting for the train. But then the Series switched venues and we got a whole different series. Ben Wallace recovered from Shaq sitting on him for 7 games. The Pistons remembered they could and did play defense. Oh those wacky adjustments of Larry Brown. I'm sure you'll start to hear a lot "are the Spurs" done talk now out of the talking heads. Frankly that too is as laughable as the notion that the Spurs were going to sweep. Detroit needs to win Game 5 to even have a shot at winning the Championship. (Can anyone at all explain why the Conference final has a home-away format of 2-2-1-1-1 and the Finals have 2-3-2?) I think the most suprsing thing is that not one of the games have been competitive. Honestly, its like Hart played for Detroit the first two games and then was traded to the Spurs for the last 2. Is it football season yet?
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4 comments:
As bad as the Pistons looked in Games 1 & 2 and as bad as the Spurs have looked these past few games, I put a lot of stock in Bill Simmons' theory on referee selection. I'm not a big conspiracy theorist and I don't believe, as some do, that David Stern is moving the chess pieces around from his office on 5th Avenue but I definitely see a trend where "must win" games have patsy referees, thereby assuring us that there won't be a sweep. After all, sweeps are bad for TV.
The Spurs will win Game 5. I'm willing to bet that the refs call a tighter game against Detroit.
Sorry about the comment deletion...
What I was trying to say is that Simmons has more on his theory about game fixing through the refs. This excerpt comes from Simmons' site:
Q: My buddy Chuck and I just had a 20-minute conversation as to why Bavetta is not involved in Game 3. As two of the other 19 NBA diehards left, we figure that Stern is saving Bavetta for Game 4. Stern desperately needs this series to get to 2-2 – the NBA cannot have a lackluster Finals followed up by a lockout; it would sink this league. And Stern still has this game covered with Crawford and Salvatore. So, here's to Bavetta in Game 4, and a 2-2 tie.
–Kyle Blanton, Las Vegas
SG: Yes, I received this e-mail on Tuesday night, before we found out Dick Bavetta was reffing Game 4. All joking aside, I'm worried that the NBA is morphing into professional wrestling. With all due respect to the Pistons, who may have played the best playoff game of any 2005 team Thursday night (four turnovers?!?!?!), Game 4 was decided in the first few minutes when it became clear that the Pistons were allowed to clutch, grab, paw at the ball and contest every shot with no repercussions, culminating in Ben Wallace raking Duncan across the arm (probably the worst no-call of the playoffs) and Popovich picking up a technical. The Spurs were D-U-N done after that. Of course, in Game 2, the Pistons weren't allowed to breathe on anyone without a foul being called.
Sometimes I feel like Mel Gibson in "Conspiracy Theory" complaining about this stuff, but I honestly feel that the officiating is slowly undermining the credibility of the league. My friends who follow the NBA feel that way. Enough of my readers feel that way that I don't think I'm crazy. And it's getting to the point that I can actually guess which referees will be assigned to which games … and I'm right! That's insanity! This is a much bigger problem than high schoolers entering the draft, six-year contracts, revenue sharing and anything else. Where have the quality referees gone? Why are some playoff games called completely different than other games? Why are certain refs only assigned to must-win games for the home team? Why does it seem like certain refs have grudges against certain teams, and more importantly, why has there been a preponderance of coaches calling out these grudges (more than any other year)?
The referee thing is extremely interesting... each referee will call a game differently obviously, but it's hard for me to find the merit in the argument right now. Manu just doesn't seem to be 100% and Tim Duncan has just not been as aggressive lately, leading to a couple of poor showings.
As for the 2-3-2 Finals format vs. the 2-2-1-1-1 format, its all for convenience purposes. That's my theory anyway, that the commissioner doesn't want to travel that often in the Finals, and wants to make it as easy as possible for media members from other countries to catch as much basketball as possible. I swear Stern even acknowledged that the 2-2-1-1-1 format is more fair for both teams, since surviving the middle 3 road games is brutal.
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