Refs accused of ill-timed mistake
Jeff McDonald
NEW ORLEANS Referee Eddie F. Rush left the court at New Orleans Arena on Sunday night with Michael Finley still in his ear.
There was no disputing the outcome, a 90-86 victory the Hornets seized while shorthanded. Finley and the rest of the Spurs simply believed it ended earlier than it should have.
A clock malfunction appears to have cost the Spurs precious seconds at the end of the game.
The Spurs had just made back-to-back 3-pointers to close a seven-point gap to one with 17.8 seconds to go. On the ensuing inbounds, New Orleans' Chris Paul split a double-team from Finley and Tony Parker in the backcourt, then drew a foul on Manu Ginobili while hoisting a half-court 3-pointer.
The clock stopped at 7.1 seconds. The Spurs argued as many as two seconds ran off the clock after the whistle.
Finley said the scoreboard operator told the officials of the breakdown, but the officials said they could not review the play because they didn't see the extra time trickle off.
We thought the clock ran, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. They didn't stop the clock. It's not something they can correct, according to the officials.
After some argument, Paul rendered the discussion moot. He made all three foul shots to put the Hornets back up by four, the final margin.
It has its privileges: With a coast-to-coast layup late in the first quarter Sunday, Parker joined an exclusive club.
It was his 10,000th point, a plateau reached by just 25 other guards in NBA history.
He became only the fourth player to accomplish that feat while with the Spurs, joining George Gervin, Tim Duncan and David Robinson. Finley is also a member of the 10,000-point club, having joined while with Dallas in 2002.
The Spurs are one of only three teams to have three active members of the 10,000-point club. Boston and Phoenix are the others.
Close to a clincher: Even with the loss, the Spurs crawled closer to clinching their 12th consecutive playoff berth.
Phoenix's loss in Sacramento allowed the Spurs to retain an eight-game lead over the ninth-place Suns with nine to play. Any combination of two Spurs victories or Suns losses will punch the Spurs' ticket to the postseason.
Posey suspended: The Hornets learned about seven hours before tipoff that the NBA had suspended key reserve James Posey for throwing the ball at the feet of referee Gary Zielinski.
Given that Stu Jackson, the league's discipline czar, witnessed the incident first-hand at Madison Square Garden on Friday, the Hornets couldn't have been surprised at the news.
Still, New Orleans coach Byron Scott said he had hoped the NBA would accept Posey's explanation that he threw Zielinski a bounce pass that inadvertently hit the official.
If my intent really is to hit you, I'm not going to throw the ball at your feet, Scott said. That's all I'm saying. If my intent is to hit you with the ball, I'm going to hit you where I know it can hurt. That's normally right in your nose.
Last edited by duncan228; 03-30-2009 at 12:11 AM.
Whatever. Why didn't refs call the intentional foul by Parker on CPusssy3 both on the inbounds (Parker grabbed his jersey) and just before he split the double team (Parker hooked Pauls arm -on purpose)?
Instead ass Paul gets 3fts on the trey hoist.
Spurs down 4 instead of down 3. Ballgame.
The refs didn't lose this game for the Spurs. Jeff McDonald needs to bring something better than this.
no the league did this to the spurs.
You know, I was looking at ESPN's play by play and after Finley's three NO called for a full time out with the 17 seconds left then they called for a 20 seconds TO with 14 seconds left and I thought: WTF? three seconds gone by and no Spur fouled a Hornet?
Here you can see it for yourself, does anyone remember what happened there?
http://scores.espn.go.com/nba/playby...meId=290329003
I dont understand why Scott has to be apologetic for Posey's actions. Even when it happened he reacted as if he expected the ref to throw Posey out of the game. He should of come to his defense at that point instead of waiting do it now. It makes him look like a fool. No reaction would've been the smarter reaction.
The Spurs trapped Dwest and he called a TO.
Spurs would've been called for a T if they called the jersey pull a foul and we would've gotten the same result. The foul that should've been called was after the ball was inbounded.
don't blame the refs spurs sucked last night
Ok, thanks. So why were the Spurs arguing about the clock management and why Didn't McDonald mention this?
the refs...Spurs just ing lost the game!
I hate these notions like "The refs didn't cause this loss, the Spurs lost it on their own".
Games are 48 minutes long. Every call, especially bad ones, do matter.
This guy needs to change his first name back to Ronald and go back to distributing Happy Meals...
Although the Hornets played better last night than the Spurs, one non-call I thought that might have proven costly came before the commotion mentioned in the article. I forget where the game clock was (maybe under 2 minutes), but I remember Bonner hoisting up a 3 at an angle and appearing to get hit on the elbow which seemed to have caused his shot to barely graze the front of the rim. The reason why the lack of a call surprised me was because a play or two earlier Paul got the benefit of a disputable call when there was contact between he and Tony behind the arc. Again, the Hornets played better overall but Bonner's 3, I believe, would've tied the game or brought SA within a point.
Stars get calls, red-headed stepchildren don't.
Too bad the Spurs apparently left their desire in SA, it shouldn't have been close. It's not the refs' fault the Spurs sucked.
Too bad that the Spurs don't have any stars, as far as the refs are concerned.
What’s interesting to me is that we haven’t seen lots of hornet fans trolling and spamming the board after the win as usual... even moronic fans figured out it was a Stern gift to them cause the guy is afraid his beloved CP3 won’t make it to the play offs this year.
no matter how the spurs played against the hornets the spurs still had a chance to win this game at the end and once again the refs screwed SA......it was so obvious cause everybody in the arena saw it........fans and the announcers were all talking about it......nba is rigged
tony parker fouled cp3 like i don't know how many times ......4 times
Keep whining stupid es!!
You Suck!
How's 9th place workin' out for ya...
you know it's funny, my friends and i sit around and wish that your team would make it to the playoffs just so we could CRUSH your hopes and dreams one more time before that piece of organization goes into full-meltdown. it's just too much fun.
then again, i guess that's what last years playoffs were for.
Excellent first post, Grundle!
You know, we know the league has had a least 1 ref betting on the spread in games in the regular season, and this would be exactly the kind of game where a crooked ref could make some money. Two teams both battling for a playoff spot, it's gonna be close either way, and it's in the NBA's financial interest for the race into the playoffs to be as close as possible. It would be pretty easy to imagine them looking the other way if there was money down on NO winning this game just to keep things interesting down the stretch. Or for a crooked ref to bet on NO just cause they're the home team, and to want the game called to make sure it's close and that NO wins.
I'm just saying. It's not like we don't know now for sure this has happened. Why should we believe it's not still happening?
+1 Donaghy was the only one who got caught so far...there are others out there, no doubt.
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