Indazone
06-20-2010, 12:10 PM
Tim Donaghy On Game 7: How The League Influences A Series
Tim Donaghy, the former NBA referee who spent 11 months in prison for relaying inside information to gamblers, is reviewing the performance of his former colleagues during the NBA Finals. Here's a quarter-by-quarter breakdown of Game 7, with video.
The big thing that stands out about the series is how dramatically the officiating changed after the first two games. In Games 1 and 2, the referees handed out fouls like candy — 54 were called in the opener, 58 in the next game. Over the remainder of the series, refs called an average of 44 fouls. What happened? Well, I can say from experience that it had nothing to do with the play on the floor and a lot more to do with what happened in a hotel room the morning of every game.
Here's how it works: In the playoffs, three refs and an alternate meet in a hotel room with a group supervisor before a game. The league office e-mails the supervisor a list of things it wants the officials to concentrate on, and the supervisor relays the message to the refs in their meeting. When I was in the league, the memos — hot off the desks of the likes of Stu Jackson, Ed T. Rush, or Ronnie Nunn — would usually detail what kinds of fouls needed to be better addressed. The message would be something like, Team X is getting away with an enormous amount of handchecking, or Shawn Bradley is hanging out under the basket, not really defending anybody. He's committing a defensive three-second violation. The goal was to set the tone for that night's game and, even more broadly, for the series. An extreme example: the 2005 Dallas-Houston matchup. I was the alternate for Game 3 and sat in on the meeting with the group supervisor. We were told explicitly to start calling moving screens and traveling violations on Yao Ming. (Jeff Van Gundy would later complain publicly that referees were targeting Yao; he got fined for it.) Houston was up 2-0 at that point. Dallas wound up winning in seven games.
So what do I think happened after Games 1 and 2 this year? I'm pretty certain that the message from the league office before Game 3 was to swallow the whistle and cut down on the number of fouls called. To let the games play out, in other words. Throughout the Finals, I've tried to give you some insight into the inherent subjectivity of refereeing a professional basketball game. But the takeaway from this series is that the subjectivity isn't just on the part of the referees. The league itself also has a huge influence in how a series plays out — through those memos and their points of emphasis. Maybe you think it's completely innocent. Maybe you don't. But there's no denying that what the rule book says means a lot less than what the NBA wants at any given moment.
http://deadspin.com/5567321/tim-donaghy-on-game-7-how-the-nba-influences-a-series
Tim Donaghy, the former NBA referee who spent 11 months in prison for relaying inside information to gamblers, is reviewing the performance of his former colleagues during the NBA Finals. Here's a quarter-by-quarter breakdown of Game 7, with video.
The big thing that stands out about the series is how dramatically the officiating changed after the first two games. In Games 1 and 2, the referees handed out fouls like candy — 54 were called in the opener, 58 in the next game. Over the remainder of the series, refs called an average of 44 fouls. What happened? Well, I can say from experience that it had nothing to do with the play on the floor and a lot more to do with what happened in a hotel room the morning of every game.
Here's how it works: In the playoffs, three refs and an alternate meet in a hotel room with a group supervisor before a game. The league office e-mails the supervisor a list of things it wants the officials to concentrate on, and the supervisor relays the message to the refs in their meeting. When I was in the league, the memos — hot off the desks of the likes of Stu Jackson, Ed T. Rush, or Ronnie Nunn — would usually detail what kinds of fouls needed to be better addressed. The message would be something like, Team X is getting away with an enormous amount of handchecking, or Shawn Bradley is hanging out under the basket, not really defending anybody. He's committing a defensive three-second violation. The goal was to set the tone for that night's game and, even more broadly, for the series. An extreme example: the 2005 Dallas-Houston matchup. I was the alternate for Game 3 and sat in on the meeting with the group supervisor. We were told explicitly to start calling moving screens and traveling violations on Yao Ming. (Jeff Van Gundy would later complain publicly that referees were targeting Yao; he got fined for it.) Houston was up 2-0 at that point. Dallas wound up winning in seven games.
So what do I think happened after Games 1 and 2 this year? I'm pretty certain that the message from the league office before Game 3 was to swallow the whistle and cut down on the number of fouls called. To let the games play out, in other words. Throughout the Finals, I've tried to give you some insight into the inherent subjectivity of refereeing a professional basketball game. But the takeaway from this series is that the subjectivity isn't just on the part of the referees. The league itself also has a huge influence in how a series plays out — through those memos and their points of emphasis. Maybe you think it's completely innocent. Maybe you don't. But there's no denying that what the rule book says means a lot less than what the NBA wants at any given moment.
http://deadspin.com/5567321/tim-donaghy-on-game-7-how-the-nba-influences-a-series