Figured out how to win with Brothers officiating.
Just play a great game on the road where not one media person in the county gave Spurs a chance to win the game, Game 6 at OKC, Game 3 at Miami.
As Pop says, play through the officiating, don't look for calls, just compete.
So proud of this team and their mental toughness.
The game is a lot more fun to watch when your not looking for NBA conspiracies.
As I said, the Spurs whine less about the refs than we fans do. They just play harder.
Barkley on NBA TV said the refs calling this game was awful. Heat fans saw a different game because they didn't go to the
line 50 times....
As how great it sounds, it is still bull . Why? Because in a fair world you shouldn't play AGAINST the officials, you shouldn't have to worry about them.
Good analysis, but Brothers had Game 5 of the OKC series, in San Antonio, and not Game 6 of that series (in OKC).
Winning a road game in these playoffs with Brothers is no joke; road teams were 1-9 in 2014 with Brothers and the only road team to win a game with him had been Indiana at Washington in Game 3 of the ECSF. Among officials who have called a significant number of playoff games over the last 8 years, it's hard to come up with too many who are bigger homers than Brothers, but (ironically) Monty McCutchen seems to be even better for home teams than Brothers. Since 2007, home teams are 70-26 in McCutchen's games (.729) and 47-18 in Brothers' games (.723). So, to get a road win against a great team with those two on the floor is a solid effort (and the Spurs have now pulled that feat off in Miami twice with those guys).
Last edited by FromWayDowntown; 06-11-2014 at 10:27 AM.
Its not like they are the Thunder, they actually shoot fewer FTs than we do this postseason. Thats astounding.
I actually thought the game was called relatively well last night.
As aggravating as it is, the swallowed whistles favoring Miami in the 3rd were completely predictable in a game of that magnitude; it's longstanding NBA protocol to give the benefit of the doubt to the aggressor and Miami got that benefit in the 3rd (I thought). That's true even if the officiating enabled some of their aggression. There were some calls against Miami in that third quarter, but the whistles against them seemed to come mostly on the offensive end where there would be no team fouls (they were called for 5 fouls in the 3rd, with 3 of the 5 being offensive fouls; the Spurs were called for 9 fouls in that quarter with 6 of those resulting in 11 FTA (luckily, only 1 of the fouls created an and-1 situation for Miami)). I thought the Heat were able to play very physically in that quarter (Parker went hard at the basket at least twice and appeared to get wiped out on his drives both times without calls) which helped them to get back into the game.
The one thing that I'll credit McCutchen and his crew with is that once the 3rd quarter was over, they seemed to recognize that the whistles needed to be more even again -- almost as if they believed that having allowed Miami to get back to within striking distance, the Spurs shouldn't lose that game based on heavy-handed officiating. I thought there were dubious calls both ways at various points, but basically, the officials let the players decide the game and the Spurs sublime performance got them the win that they deserved.
How these two call any playoff games is ridiculous. Steve Javie must be retired, lol.
Oh game 5 blowout instead? The 28 point beat down?
OK, that is even better. We Spurs fans can officially take Brothers off our hate the ref list.
One thing about Brothers that I like is, if you whine to him, he will answer you and tell you that you are full of crap, that he knows that he made the right call. He does not get intimidated.
My thoughts exactly. The refs were, at times, making the game unwatchable. Then they would swing to the other side and give the Spurs a couple of weird calls. It was inconsistent, at best.
Exactly.
I'm not sure that there was ever any reason to think that Brothers should have been on that sort of a list. The Spurs are 11-3 all-time in playoff games with Brothers. The 3 losses in that span are: Game 3 at Dallas this year (Carter's shot), Game 1 against Dallas in 2009 (in a series the Spurs were never going to win), and Game 2 of the 2008 WCF at LAL (a game the Spurs weren't going to win).We Spurs fans can officially take Brothers off our hate the ref list.
He's officiated three of the craziest Spurs playoff wins over the last few years: last night's win in Miami, Game 1 of the Golden State series last year with its incredible comeback, and Game 1 of the Phoenix series in 2008.
I don't think he goes out of his way to favor the Spurs, but I also don't think he's particularly bad to the Spurs. He's not a great official and is open to lots of criticism for the calls that he makes at times, but I don't think he's ever really hurt the Spurs in any way that would make Spurs fans think he's a dreaded official.
The Brothers issue was mostly (I think) with the perception that he's heavy-handedly pro-Thunder, but even that was pretty much overblown given that the Thunder playoff games that Brothers had worked up through the 2014 WCF had basically all been at home (where they would be expected to be good).
Frequently wrong, but never in doubt.
Less complaining when the calls go your way. Leonard could've easily been in foul trouble again. The refs will make sure the Heat win game 4 though.
This was my observation as well. The officials allowed the spurs to defend aggressively after Miami cut the lead to single digits. This gave the spurs confidence.
Overall they were terrible like usual but the 3rd quarter they were on a mission to keep people watching.
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