gotta love them refs!

[Capt Bringdown]

lol @ Fisher's circus shot being an "obvious call"

C'mon man you can do better than this can't ya?

Your assertion that refs don't blow obvious calls is absurd.

[koriwhat]

Your assertion that refs don't blow obvious calls is absurd.

[TJastal]

Your assertion that refs don't blow obvious calls is absurd.

During the course of a game, sure they will blow obvious calls once in awhile. Sometimes purposely, sometimes not.

However on a last second game changing obvious call with major implications where they will be under scrutiny for weeks if they blow the call, I think they have a sudden flash of brilliance in these situations.

[Capt Bringdown]

Karl: "Good play. Good basketball. Melo made a great play. It’s close. I’ve seen it called both ways.”

But at the buzzer?

Told that TV analyst Scott Hastings said he hadn’t seen that in his nearly three decades watching NBA basketball, (George) Karl said, “I’d probably agree with Scott.”

I agree with Karl. I've seen it called both ways.
Unfortunately. It was an obvious charge.

[Obstructed_View]

I guess you weren't yet a Spurs fan when Fisher, caught, wheeled, jumped and shot the ball in a physically impossible .4 seconds?

Refs blow obvious calls all the time. And, in the NBA, it's common to see the refs eat their whistles at the end of the game. As Barkley pointed out in the post game, refs don't want to be seen as deciding the fate of the game. That's why this call tonight was so remarkable.

Fail. Debunked by me years ago.

I do, however, agree with the rest of your post. I'm surprised a)they made the call at all, and b) they finally made a call for the Spurs. I think that's the only call of that game on a charge/block that went the Spurs' way.

[TJastal]

Fail. Debunked by me years ago.

I do, however, agree with the rest of your post. I'm surprised a)they made the call at all, and b) they finally made a call for the Spurs. I think that's the only call of that game on a charge/block that went the Spurs' way.

[GSH]

When Stu Jackson was in charge of the officials, he biased the calls with his directives. Period, end of story, don't ever let anyone tell you any different. Whe he wanted them to "crack down" on a certain type of move, he would show them multiple video clips - all of the same player.

For instance, he would tell them that for the rest of the season, they need to crack down on 3-second violations. Then he would show them eight video clips in a row, all of Tim Duncan. The message was inescapable. It wasn't just Tim, or the Spurs. But from what I understood, Tim and Bruce got more than their share of attention.

Imagine if you were told to crack down on travelling violations, and then were shown a bunch of clips of Steve Nash rolling his hand under-to-over while dribbling. Do you think you would wind up calling Nash for a couple of travels in the next game? Of course. It created a bias that hurt certain teams.

I feel certain that Bruce was target by some of those "education" sessions after Steve Kerr and a few others started their campaign against him. I also think that, purely from a business perspective, the league recognized that the Spurs' brand of defense didn't sell tickets, and they tailored the rules and officiating around the league to discourage it.

That being said, I don't believe that there has ever been any sort of league wide conspiracy to derail the Spurs. Individual refs may get a hard-on for a particular player or coach for a while. A few of them have pet calls that happen to affect some teams more than others. All of them favor the more famous players over the journeymen. And Stu Jackson was an idiot for the way he handled things. But... the truly bad calls are spread around pretty evenly between teams. Maybe not on any single night. But over a season, everybody gets their share of bad calls.

If you start believing that there is a conspiracy to hurt just your team, it will make you all crazy-like.

[greyforest]

The officiating definitely favored Denver until the last call.