stevew,

That article makes zero sense. There are many ways we can shred it, but here are just a few:

1) The highlighted part you have in bold. Idiotic just on the face of it.

2) The traveling call couldn't have went "either way" It was a clear travel. Even James admitted it. Furthermore, of the calls that could have went either way in the final 5 minutes, it was pretty evenly divided amongst the two teams.

3) Their defense and offense were not up to usual standards. On defense, they can't get a stop in the final five minutes to save their lives. On offense, Williams and West have been horrible from beyond the three point line. That has to change or Cleveland will not win this series. Before the big James three, they were 4-18 from beyond the arc as a team. With the way the Cavs are constructed, that is usually going to be a death sentence.

Really, really poor recap.

11.

Which ref was pointed in that direction? I've seen the replay from at least 4 different angles and none of the refs are looking at Williams. I have the game DVR'ed and looked again at the play after reading this thread and still don't see a ref looking that way.

There was a ref about 20-30 feet away with his head pointed towards the basket that Williams was standing under when he petulantly threw the ball at Howard.


m = Mo Williams
d = Dwight Howard
r = ref looking right at Williams

Im a Melo believer

User your own judgment guys.

I also thought the officiating for the Cavs-Magic game was pretty good. They had one of the league's better crews officiating it.

I can't tell if that official is looking at him or if he's already turned his head to look down the court the way his hand is pointing. Youtube resolution is crap for stuff like that.

We are not seriously arguing whether a missed tech in the first quarter has any bearing on the game? It is clearly a butterfly effect situation.

How come Mike Brown didn't play Wally at all?

Great shot by Smith there at the buzzer and a terrible technical foul call by the refs.

Come on Dan Crawford, the Lakers need to win. Pull through for us.

dude - did you miss the memo - the refs are trying to get the lakers the win, they've got to try to give the lakers as many extra points as they can

Wait, is Dan Crawford officiating this game? :)

I wonder if Mark Jackson would be a good coach.

Kobe needs to take over.

Ok, Mark Jackson... that boom, boom, pau joke was lame.

how is farmar not ejected for throwing the ball into the stands in anger after the call? that's blatant

I would think so.

Huge shot by Billups there. These have been the most entertaining conference final series I can remember in the last few years at least.

Lakers are 23-35 from the FT line.

The suspense is killing me!

Great call on that charge.

All those missed freethrows hurt.

cmon nuggets!

KOBE FOR THREE!

bah. george karl should have put melo back on kobe defensively before that. with 1:15 left there's not really a risk of Melo fouling out right away

Kobe looks like a man possessed

I hate these end-game timeouts. :mad:

Every timeout past the two minute mark should be 20-second timeouts.

You know, if there is one thing I wish the NBA could get rid of it would be the "I didn't foul him" show half the guys put on with every single foul called on them. I mean JR Smith hit nothing but arm on that foul - after he hand checked and bumped him down the baseline - and he's whining about it. Other than that the league really has gotten more exciting in the past few years and the conference finals have been fantastic.

Had to call a timeout there on the inbound play. Good...that's one less they'll have in the remaining 37 seconds.

What about the guys that cry if they don't get a foul call?

Gotta be able to inbound that ball.

I hope Stan Van Gundy was watching because THAT is how you defend a sideline inbounds play

What an awful pass.

Almost as annoying for sure

Note to Magic: That is how you defend an inbounds pass.

seriously *sigh*

Kobe is an ice cold killer. Dagger free throws.

41 points for Kobe.

Lakers regain homecourt advantage.

All is right in the world.

The NBA tried to crack down on it a few years ago. They would call a technical for arguing anything and made a point of letting teams/players know. It lasted through the preseason and then the officials didn't have the balls to call it on stars in games that counted.

Denver really plays lost late in the game.

Kobe will not allow LeBron to one up him.

Yeah I don't think there's any way to get it out of the game - just wishful thinking because games would consist of nothing but Ts

It's better to laugh than cry.

Nice win for the Lakers.

I don't get the flagrant there. I guess they thought the elbow was unnecessary?

Pretty cool Yahoo/TNT four-camera mosaic live feed of the Magic/Cavs game.

http://www.tnt.tv/sports/nba/playoffs09_live_yahoo/

Another joke call on Howard.

Boring free throw competition tonight. Brown needs to make some adjustments

Orlando has looked like the better team down the stretch. Lebron is so so good without the ball I don't understand why they have him playing PG and just pulling up from 3 as often as he did in the past few minutes.