NBA Playoffs Thread 2011:

[Revering4Blue]

That offensive goaltending that wasn't called on OKC was horrible too.

NBA confirms Thunder’s go-ahead basket was illegal

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_yl...uggets-thunder

[Razor Shines]

I think Hansbrough just sees "DUKE" when Boozer is on the court.

[TeamSelig]

The NBA REALLY wants Chicago to win, huh?

[Oxblood]

The NBA REALLY wants Chicago to win, huh?

It's almost unwatchable at this point.

It's also funny the way Chi reacts to every foul called against them, where's the TF's?

[RBA]

Maybe the NBA is taking out the No. 1 and 2 seeds in the West to give the East a fighting chance this year.

[HotCorner]

The Mavericks go to the line 19 times in the 4th Quarter to the Blazers 2. The favored teams/home teams had a ton more free throw attempts than the road team. Nate McMillan isn't a coach that ever complains about the officiating, but he had no choice but to say after the game, "I don't know what to say". "My players had no idea how to play the game because of it not being consistent on both ends of the floor." That was pretty much a prevailing theme around the league for the Game 1's.

That said, Nate McMillan lost that game by playing Brandon Roy for all but one second of the 4th Quarter, leaving their best defender (at Guard) and best three-point shooter on the bench the whole quarter in Matthews, while also leaving on the bench the entire 4th Quarter, Marcus Camby, who had 18 Rebounds.

The NBA has assigned referee Danny Crawford to Game 2. The Mavs are 2-16 in playoff games with him as head referee. Interesting.

http://sports.espn.go.com/dallas/nba...ory?id=6388692

DALLAS -- As far as Dallas conspiracy theories go, referee Danny Crawford working Mavericks playoff games ranks right up there with who shot J.R. Ewing.

Crawford is the lead official of the crew that will work Tuesday night's Game 2 in the Dallas Mavericks' first-round series against the Portland Trail Blazers. That will make many Mavs fans cringe, given the franchise's miserable track record in playoff games worked by Crawford.

The Mavs have a 2-16 record in playoff games officiated by Crawford, including 16 losses in the last 17 games. Dallas is 48-41 in the rest of their playoff games during the ownership tenure of Mark Cuban, who has been fined millions of dollars in the last 11 years for publicly complaining about officiating.

[KoryMac5]

Crawford is definitely not a guy you want to see around a Mavs game, if you are a Mavs fan. Portland has to be jumping up and down about this switch and in a very good way.

Interesting numbers from a Dallas website:

Besides the Mavs being 2-16 in playoff games officiated by Crawford since the 2001 season. ... In all other playoff games since 2001 they are 48-41.

*Average point differential in that time-frame: With Crawford: minus-7.7; Without Crawford: plus-0.9

*He's officiated four elimination games; Dallas has lost all four.

*In 2009, when the Mavs were preparing to take on the Nuggets in Round 2, we pointed out before Game 1 that in Mavs playoffs games worked by Crawford from 2001-to-2005, the Mavs record was 0-8. (Those years, Dallas was 41-37 in games NOT worked by Crawford.)

Ouch!

Bill Simmoms also weighs in with his take on this situation:

So why does Danny rank so highly in the power rankings? Because any NBA official who can keep his job post-Donaghy with a documented history of bias against a particular team has to be commended. I'm being sarcastic. What a joke. The league could easily avoid these situations by admitting that, yes, from time to time, a team rubs an official the wrong way, and officials are human, and there's nothing we can do about this other than making sure the official and the team cross paths as little as possible -- like Crawford and Dallas, like Bill Kennedy and Boston, like Joey Crawford and San Antonio (1-4 in Crawford's five Spurs playoff games since he was suspended for ejecting Tim Duncan in 2007) -- but apparently it's easier to stick our heads in the sand and pretend this stuff isn't going on. You know, because Tim Donaghy's documented-by-the-FBI, staggeringly successful record of picking winners by playing on the biases of officials against certain teams didn't really happen. Even though it did. Let's just move on.

Double Ouch!!

[TeamSelig]

This has received quite a bit of press though.... it will be interesting to see if Crawford calls an extra favorable game for Dallas to "even" out the numbers.

[NJReds]

No Billups, no Amare ... a late lead and the same boneheaded mistakes result in the Knicks being down 2-0.

[Razor Shines]

Watching the Blazers and Mavs. They're talking about Kidd's improved shooting.... How long has Kidd been playing basketball? And he had to learn about making the "V" with your pointer and middle finger when you shoot the ball from Dirk just this year? So did he intentionally ignore all the shooting coaching he'd had up until that point?

[Kingspoint]

Watching the Blazers and Mavs. They're talking about Kidd's improved shooting.... How long has Kidd been playing basketball? And he had to learn about making the "V" with your pointer and middle finger when you shoot the ball from Dirk just this year? So did he intentionally ignore all the shooting coaching he'd had up until that point?

When you play street basketball with Gary Payton in Oakland growing up, you pass the ball to Payton and let him shoot.

[Razor Shines]

When you play street basketball with Gary Payton in Oakland growing up, you pass the ball to Payton and let him shoot.

Haha, that's good.

[Puffy]

No Billups, no Amare ... a late lead and the same boneheaded mistakes result in the Knicks being down 2-0.

Yeah, I just can't be too mad though. The final five on the court for the last 3 minutes were Melo, Jeffries, Anthony Carter, Douglas and Bill Walker. The fact that they even were close is a miracle.

If you watched those final minutes it was get the ball to Melo, Big Baby immediately ran to the double team (I mean IMMEDIATE) so who was going to score once Melo was forced to pass?

If Amare and Billups can return Friday I think Knicks win that one. Then if they can win the Sunday game its a series again. If not, well, they were always a one and out this year anyway. They need that one more player to beat the big boys. Who that player is though I have no idea.

[NJReds]

If you watched those final minutes it was get the ball to Melo, Big Baby immediately ran to the double team (I mean IMMEDIATE) so who was going to score once Melo was forced to pass?

I thought they might try to run him off a screen or something. But you're right, hard to get too upset.

I think Billups will retire. That subtracts $14M from the cap. They need a big ... Tyson Chandler, for example ... that can run, block shots and rebound. And obviously they'll need a point guard.

It'd be nice if Landry Fields would show up. I mean, he didn't get traded to Denver, but his game still left town.

[Chip R]

If the NBA were fixed WWE style then even if the NBA wanted BOS to win the series, they would make the series go 7 and even the Knicks losing would put them over coming into next season (if there is a next season.)