No Joey Crawford in game 1

[EricB]

:lol he's in atlanta today for that game 7

[TIMMYD!]

Would've been better to get him out of the way early though.

[robino2001]

I was actually going to come in and start a thread asking FWD or someone how the ref assignments work for the 2nd round. Do they shrink the pool of 8 crew chiefs or are the same 8 still involved? Is there a pattern they typically follow - like if all 8 are involved, will they cycle through all 8 meaning one does almost every other game... obviously not in the same series...?

I've never paid close attention to the referee rotations in the past.

[EricB]

I think the pool shrinks for the secondary refs...

[K-State Spur]

actually, i'd love to have him for a road game.

his anti-spurs bias (which obviously exists) is not as bad as the home/road bias that most officials bring.

[kobyz]

but if he ref in one game it doesn't say he will not ref more in that series.

[MateoNeygro]

Joey Crawford is a tool.

[honestfool84]

it's nice how you can start new threads without even admitting the asinine comment you made in your last thread you started.

Typical mavs bs no class reaction. (http://spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=152811&page=2)

[NFGIII]

If the Spurs take game 1 in PHX I'd love to have Joey in game 2. This way if the Spurs lose because of the officials it's not that big of a deal. And also Joey isn't intimidated by gome crowds.

Agreed. This would be a great scenario for the Spurs. Anytime you go in and get a split it's great. And though I'm not up on what JC is all about to me I would think that he is behaving since Stern seems to have it in for him and under a microscope, especially when reffing the Spurs. Last thing JC needs is another Debacle in Dallas and get bounced from the league for good. IMHO

And I've watched JC enough to agree that he isn't intimidated by any crowd, be it home or away. It's his ego that gets in the way.

[EricB]

it's nice how you can start new threads without even admitting the asinine comment you made in your last thread you started.

Typical mavs bs no class reaction. (http://spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=152811&page=2)


Im sorry when did u become forum police?

Don't like it? Scroll.

[Russ]

:lol he's in atlanta today for that game 7

Biggest game of the playoffs so far. The only Game 7 so far. . .

And Joey gets the call. Not a good sign going forward. :wow

[widowmaker]

Biggest game of the playoffs so far. The only Game 7 so far. . .

And Joey gets the call. Not a good sign going forward. :wow

Joey Crawford is David Stern's hitman. I've said it before and I'll say it again, my word is my bond. :ihit

[spursfan1000]

Good thing we didn't have him last series.

[temujin]

Crawford as Stern's puppet is now seriously challanged by the clowns that "reffed" the Lakers game tonight.

It's been a long time since I have seen something like this.

Oh, and not a single ABC replay to show the zillion fouls on the Utah drives in the 4th.

Book it, it's LA in the Finals again.

[shelshor]

Referee Assignments
Mon. May 3
San Antonio @ Phoenix: Bennett Salvatore; Ken Mauer; Michael Smith

hmmmm For game 1 aganist the Mavs:
Officials: #15 Bennett Salvatore, #38 Michael Smith, #55 Bill Kennedy

[FromWayDowntown]

I was actually going to come in and start a thread asking FWD or someone how the ref assignments work for the 2nd round. Do they shrink the pool of 8 crew chiefs or are the same 8 still involved?

I've got one year of data and a couple of years of assumptions to base any conclusions upon, but here's what I understand:

In Round 2, the overall pool shrinks. For the last 3 playoffs there have been 35 officials who worked in Round 1 (that is, 35 in 2007, 35 in 2008, and 35 in 2009; for whatever it's worth, there were only 33 who worked Round 1 in 2010). In each of those years, the pool goes from 35 to 27 in Round 2.

As for the chiefs, last year, there were 8 chiefs in Round 1 and 7 in Round 2. But of the 7 chiefs in Round 2, one (Wunderlich) only worked one game as a chief. There was one Round 1 chief who was cut out altogether (Bavetta) and another who became just a crew official the rest of the way (Wunderlich). So, really, there were only 6 chiefs to work Round 2 games.

That generally jives with my presumptions about who the chiefs were in past years (the presumptions are based on Finals assignments and the identity of other crew members). In 2008, there were only 6 chiefs in Round 2. In 2007, I think there were 8, but 2 of those (Callahan and Delaney) only worked one game as a chief. In 2006, there appear to have been 7 chiefs, and in 2005, there appears to have been 8.

With that said, I think the assignments for tonight demonstrate that we're down to at least 7 chiefs, since Ken Mauer is on the crew tonight in Phoenix and is not the crew chief. It seems unlikely to me that Mauer will be re-elevated, barring injury to another chief.


Is there a pattern they typically follow - like if all 8 are involved, will they cycle through all 8 meaning one does almost every other game... obviously not in the same series...?

As for the question of a pattern, I think there was a pretty clear pattern last year. Here are the chief assignments by day for Round 2 in 2009:

5/3 -- D. Crawford
5/4 -- Wunderlich, Foster
5/5 -- Javie, McCutchen
5/6 -- Salvatore, J. Crawford
5/7 -- D. Crawford
5/8 -- Foster, Javie
5/9 -- McCutchen, Salvatore
5/10 -- J. Crawford, D. Crawford
5/11 -- Foster, Javie
5/12 -- McCutchen, Salvatore
5/13 -- J. Crawford
5/14 -- D. Crawford, McCutchen
5/15 -- no games
5/16 -- no games
5/17 -- Javie, J. Crawford (Foster and D. Crawford as crew members in Game 7s)

We'll see if the same pattern holds for 2010.

[TampaDude]

Good thing we didn't have him last series.

If we hadn't won Game 6, we would have seen him in Game 7 in Dallas for sure.

So...we get Benny "The Fixer" Salvatore tonight, eh??? Should be an interesting game. :lol

[Pistons < Spurs]

You all worry far too much about the officials.

[SpursRulez4eVeR]

sDM2eGpf5Hc

rofl

[coyotes_geek]

You all worry far too much about the officials.

No kidding.

[FromWayDowntown]

You all worry far too much about the officials.

I'll defend myself briefly by saying that I'm not worried about the officials at all. A few years ago, I became interested in understanding who the NBA thinks its best officials are, in the hope that I could watch how those officials work a game and understand how the game is called at this level. Rather than keeping records informally, I've kept track of the officials since, trying to see how the list evolves over time.

If anything, I'm about as much of an apologist for the officials as there is in this forum; and I'm pretty certain that I've insisted repeatedly that officiating doesn't determine outcomes.

[jag]

You all worry far too much about the officials.

[Spurologist]

Lu1Wz5JQEz8&fmt

[temujin]

Lu1Wz5JQEz8&fmt

That's the key to the 07 championship, right there.

Crawford eliminated from the Spurs playoffs games.

[Pistons < Spurs]

I'll defend myself briefly by saying that I'm not worried about the officials at all. A few years ago, I became interested in understanding who the NBA thinks its best officials are, in the hope that I could watch how those officials work a game and understand how the game is called at this level. Rather than keeping records informally, I've kept track of the officials since, trying to see how the list evolves over time.

If anything, I'm about as much of an apologist for the officials as there is in this forum; and I'm pretty certain that I've insisted repeatedly that officiating doesn't determine outcomes.

No need for you or anyone else to defend themselves FWD. My comment wasn't really an attempt to call any one out. Just more of an observation.

For an organization that has won as much as the Spurs have, I'm always shocked by the number of rants/threads/comments/complaints about game officials. Especially ones like this that come before the game even starts. It's more of what I'd expect from a lesser teams fan base.

I can appreciate the statistical analysis, the historical findings and the picture they paint. And again, my comment is more about years of reading countless posts on here relating to officials, and not solely based on this comments in just this thread.

But at the end of the day, I expect my team to have to play through some bad calls, and benefit from some they didn't deserve. I demand the players play through adversity rather than blame officials for bad calls. I don't buy into agenda's or the idea that Stern is fixing the games. So to me, all the ref talk has never made much sense.

But to each their own.

[TampaDude]

That's the key to the 07 championship, right there.

Crawford eliminated from the Spurs playoffs games.

Could be...but I think the biggest factor was the Horry hipcheck on Nash in Game 4 of the WCSF. It got Stoudemire and Diaw suspended for Game 5 and completely changed the momentum of the series.