A quick look at foul calls

[samikeyp]

You won't find too many Pistons fans who will claim otherwise.

Remember in the finals games 1 and 2 when 2 Piston Starters and then their 6th man got 2-3 quick bs fouls in the first quarter? Nuff said

and the ones who do seem to post here! (not all of course.)

[NCaliSpurs]

Another thing I just remembered is steals. Teams that have guards that like to hack away for steals on the perimeter are more likely to pick up a lot of fouls (and get into the penalty early). Look at the Pistons:

Billups: 0.82 steals per game
Hamilton: 0.66 steals per game
Prince: 0.69 steals per game

That is easily the lowest of any team's 1/2/3 players combined.

Again, I'm sure the Pistons get some beneficial treatment, but I don't think the dicrepancy is nearly as big as the numbers look. There are other reasons.

I know what you are going for here, but you are just wrong.

You are trying to say that since the guards steal less, then that means the Pistons actually don't hack and grab, and hence don't get called for fouls as often.

But looking at those 3 players alone isn't the whole picture. The team as whole steals the ball 6.7 times per game, compared to 6.42 in San Antonion. Using the same logic that you used, doesn't that mean the Spurs should be called for less fouls than the Pistons?

[cs100]

I remember Hubie Brown saying that players need to adjust to the way the game is called. It was called very tight and the Spurs adjusted quicker than the Pistons. Nuff said.