Bell is an idiot. Those elbows he caught might've connected, I'm not really sure, either way he clearly flopped. Now just flopping, whatever, he's trying to draw attention and get the call, fine. But then trying to use those flops as justification for clotheslining a guy is just ridiculous.
Bell should get two game suspension. That act was totally intentional and stupid. I don't consider it PHYSICAL PLAY and you can't compare it to throwing elbow for fighting position during the game. Bell is idiot. Maybe he wants his team to go fishing as soon as possible?
Bell should receive an award.
Thank you - at least Bowen is more discreet when he pulls stuff off (like kicking Ray in the back), but he still does it. I hate when Spurs fans act like their team is above anything like that... I mean, I'm sure Rodman never fouled anyone hard or got ejected back in the day... and Kobe is #1 up there with Ray-Ray and Vince Carter - all of them are pussified primadonnas and Raja finally did what probably everyone in the league has been wanting to do for years now (no doubt Shaq has, but he only gets 2 chances per season and is not elbowed in the face/held for 48 minutes in 5 straight games)...
The problem is that Raja doesn't give Kobe an inch, but aside from a few flops, he pretty much plays him as hard and straight up as anyone in the league ever has... what you all fail to notice (and I've reviewed via TiVo) is that everytime Kobe gets screened he grabs the screener, pushes them, then throws his arms up immediately like he hasn't done anything, and if he ever gets called for a foul, he is in the refs face acting like he hasn't done anything... as a high school basketball official, when you hear someone riding you the whole game, I can attest that eventually, you want to stop hearing it and either start giving them calls or throw them out... and I only get it from little kids and low-paid coaches, not multi-million dollar pussy athletes and the "Zen Master."
Phil is able to get away with shouting explitives at Raja from the bench and Kobe is on the refs the whole game (after every timeout, end of quarter/half) and I think that's why he got ejected because they were sick of hearing it... then Kobe puts that smile on his face and acts like "you're throwing me out?" - someone needs to stop allowing him to think he's untouchable... Lastly, I'm not supporting Bell or saying what he did is acceptable - I'm very angry both as a Suns fan and as a basketball fan that the situation reached this point... if you watch the replay again, you'll see Kobe give Raja a slap and small elbow and I think he just snapped and took Kobe down as hard as he could... at the same time, I'm really glad that someone finally did it to Kobe especially when he acts like he's tough player who "grew up playing like this in Philly" (yeah, his dad was in the NBA - Kobe grew up in white private school Lower Merion... not Philly)... that hit he put on Mike Miller is inexcusable and I got really pissed off early in this thread when everyone is protecting Kobe and acting like he's never done anything "outside the scope of the game to hurt another player"...
Needless to say, I think a professional athlete needs to show a little more class and an ability to keep a level head, especially when trying to help his team come back from a 3-1 deficit... by next season, I'll probably be over it and can enjoy watching Kobe eat even more so than I do right now... beyond that, I agree with a lot of the posters that Luke Walton made a really hard foul and Smush Parker got away with tackling Tim Thomas right after it (Boris Diaw got a tech on the play, when Kobe came up behind him and pushed him in the back and he ran into Walton) and then Kwame elbowed Diaw and taunted him and just received a tech on the play (Diaw got a personal foul too on the play because the refs can't ever let the Lakers receive the disadvantage on any type of call... twice in the same game - Walton flagrant, Diaw gets tech as make-up, then Kwame got a tech and Diaw gets personal foul as a make-up)... let's just admit that with the amount of ing that Phil and Kobe did after Game 1 (when Kobe took 4 steps and then got slapped on the head by Tim Thomas), that for 3 games, the refs tried to give the Lakers the series, all culminating with 2 comebacks in a combined 18 seconds of play in what I think was the greatest homecooking event in all of professional basketball. I just think the Suns got tired of hearing they were soft and letting the Lakers be too physical with them and it has all culminated with them having to go into Staples without their top defensive stopper and pull off a huge victory - I've also considered that hopefully the Suns are banking the league's greediness to make the refs force a Game 7 so we can all see the Kobe/Raja redux event.
Yeah, and maybe Ben Wallace never pushed Ron Artest in the throat (not supporting what Artest did or the brawl that ensued) and we've never seen Rip Hamilton kick, elbow, and push people because he's one of the biggest pussies and whiners in the entire league (I don't know if I've seen such a player fold under heavy defense in my entire life)... actually, you should just shut-up right now, because your team didn't receive the "Bad Boys" tag in the 80s and 90s because they cooked the other team dinner and gave them massages after the game - it's because Rodman and Laimbeer would push, pull, hit, grab, and throw every player ranging from Larry Bird to Jerome Kersey... please don't tell me you've forgotten about those championships and the at ude of that team so quickly...
Raja Bell is a little , can't stand the er. Remember in 2003 WCF when he almost cleaned Tony up with the purposely swung elbow. Can't stand him since then.
Suspension was definitly deserved, but I would of loved to have seen him play Game 6 against Kobe, would have been fantastic.
Wow - just when I thought your posts couldn't get any worse, you go and totally redeem yourself... do you have a fact-checking gene in your body??? Do you really think that if you write it on this message board, then it is somehow true?? Please tell me, because I'm very confused. I mean, 3 seconds on Yahoo Sports proves that Kobe was in the NBA before Raja had even graduated college... then Raja was in the CBA and overseas for about 2 season before Popovich calls up Larry Brown and says, "hey, sign this guy" (btw, in the 2000 off-season, Raja was the last cut to make the Spurs roster, so he was almost one of your boys), and then Raja plays 5 games for the 76ers before the playoffs begin, where they eventually play the Lakers in the finals!!!! I have a feeling that maybe some bad blood started there and continued to when Raja moved to the Mavs and played Kobe more often in the season. Also, to save you the energy, Bell went to Florida International University, which I don't remember being anywhere near Philadelphia or Lower Merion, PA...
Sorry, I forgot, when was the last time Bruce Bowen hurt his team by getting suspended for an obvious cheap shot?
Yeah, but not as bad as Juwan Howard's complete and unwarranted raping of Derek Anderson that ruined Spurs' chances that year.... Let's admit it, when you see Tony, I think there's only a few people in the world that wouldn't want to take an elbow to that smug French face...
Hence, I said he was more discreet... discreet is the antonym of obvious... they only way I can remember such a thing where his play affected the team is that he got Ray-Ray mad enough to cry to the refs and Stu Jackson to watch Bowen closer last year and he fouled out during one of the 2 games the Sonics won last year, and then the series went back to SA and everything was back to normal... then Duncan said "FU" and won it in 6.
I figured I'd help you to the end of my post as well and mention again that I thought it was a classless play that may have cost the Suns the series... but I love seeing Kobe eat .
the idea that wallace slammed artest in the throat(rather than just shoved him in the chest), which I've watched grow day by day since the brawl happened, is probably the most hilarious bit of fiction I've heard concerning the brawl.
also, people might take you more seriously if you didn't base your arguements on nicknames. remember, i said "might". it's still unlikely, as you don't seem very intelligent.
The NBA doesn't consider the obviousness of an action when they take action against the player, they consider the severity of the action, the potential for injury, etc. The reason Bowen doesn't get suspended isn't that he's somehow less obvious when he's doing dangerous things, it's because he doesn't do anything comparable to clotheslining a player on the way to the basket.
uhh the lakers have humiliated Nash and the suns times a 100
hardly anyone expected the lakers to be up 3-2
he's right. good defensive players in the nba commit plenty of fouls, they just know how to get away with it. part of that is not stupidly doing things that are dangerous to other players.
They also don't go back and review things that Bowen does like they would with Ron Artest (see - elbow to Ginobili)... you think if Bowen did that to Ray, he would get suspended? No, because he generally does not act in the malicious manner that players like Artest do.
the fbi also doesn't monitor the activities of nuns as closely as it does neo-nazis
As a "realistic Spurs Fan" maybe you should also be a realistic basketball viewer and tell me how the Lakers would have won Game 4 without a little bit of home cooking... i.e. questionable jumpball call (oh and Luke Walton's foot was out of bounds when his hand was on the ball... somehow Bennett Salvatore - I think Spurs fans tend to hate him too - did not see that, although it happened about 3 inches in front of him)... I like how easy it is for you to comment on series and games not involving your team when I'm pretty sure if Dirk starts getting a lot of calls in the next series, there will be a thread on here complaining about how Bowen (or whoever is guarding him) isn't respected as a defender... oh and there's already been one led "well, we got the Bennett and Bavetta games over..."
C'mon, man, let's ask for a little consistency in opinions... I'm not going to place all blame on officials, but I see a disparity once Kobe and Phil started complaining about the number of FTs the Suns got... either way, if Diaw hit both FTs in regulation of Game 4, we might not even be having this discussion. I just remember reading when Duncan "didn't get the respect from the officials that the MVP deserves" and then suddenly those arguments aren't valid when used to describe a terrible call on Steve Nash simply because he doesn't play for the Spurs? I mean, let's not forget that all of you went insane when George Karl complained about calls and the Nuggets stole a game last year, but ignore it when Kobe and Phil do something similar after losing Game 1.
i see a disparity in the lakers success once kobe started playing good basketball, i hope the league investigates this.
That's my whole point. I guess I'm just tired that every time some idiot on another team does something dirty opposing fans always bring up Bowen and claim he's at the same level as these fools.
The debate here is not whether Bell should be suspended or whether it was a clean play - it is obvious that it was a dirty play and that he deserves the suspension, and it pisses me off that he lost his cool because it's like Kobe had won again. You seem to contradict yourself in this statement - "The NBA doesn't consider the obviousness of an action... [Bowen] doesn't do anything comparable to clotheslining a player..." Clotheslining a player is obvious - that's why it's a suspension - just like going into the stands to punch the wrong Detroit fan means the league will look at the video of your elbow to another player's face towards the end of a blowout game.
Nothing Bowen does, in my mind, warrants a suspension at all, but that doesn't mean he's not a dirty player or has done dirty things (like jump kicking Wally S. and kicking Ray on the ground). My original point was that I hate how the Spurs fans on this board (a) would love Raja Bell and his intensity and don't want to admit it and (b) act like such actions would be so far above any Spurs player. Trust me, the type of elbow Artest threw is stuff Kobe does every game, but gets away with it because he's Kobe and Ginobili drew a lot of attention to the action by flailing his entire body like he does all the time.
1. he was already suspended, there's not much debate anymore.
2. yes, bowen would get away with more than bell would. ben wallace would too. that's just the way it works in the nba.
is that really so shocking? the nba has favored it's stars for a long time. it's not as obvious on defense, but they do the same thing they do with their offensive studs.
I see a disparity in Rip Hamilton's season stats and the playoff ones where he folds when the pressure is on and likes throwing elbows to other players' faces. Maybe they should investigate presence of a vagina.
You obviously know little about basketball, and that's unfortunate, but there are lot of factors beyond Kobe's play in the series that have affected the outcomes. His play in this series has given the Lakers a chance to be in every game of the series (except game 5) and it's shock factor is probably what stands out most in people's minds. But the Suns talent and chemistry I think can outweigh anything Kobe can do individually, if the Suns make the proper adjustments (which they seemed to do last game until Bell got thrown out) and increase their intensity by diving after loose balls and hustling on the boards. I don't think the Lakers' role players have the mettle and confidence to get through periods of poor play, so once this confidence is shaken a little, I think the Suns can regain the edge... mostly because Nash is much more of a teamplayer to begin with than this new Kobe thinks he is.
Lastly, like the MVP and coach of my team, I don't generally call out officiating or the coddling of superstars by the league, but when they admit on around the horn, sportscenter and PTI that perhaps there is a little Lakers home cookin' going on, I tend to agree... As you can tell, Nash and D'Antoni have stopped trying to be diplomatic and cordial about the disparity of calls/breaks in the series and I actually like it even though I wish everything could be decided on the court and not in press conferences. However, Kobe thinks he deserves to be able to move around the court at will and if he gets touched by anyone, tends to start grabbing, throwing elbows, and yapping at the refs. He also seems to think that he can get in the face of every player on the Suns and I think Raja wanted to say something about it (in typical primadonna pussy fashion, Kobe just lies there on the ground and does nothing). If you didn't notice, last night when his teammates weren't hitting those shots they have in the series, he went into old Kobe mode and started jacking up shots (almost scored 30 for the first time in the playoffs and probably would have if he didn't get ejected).
It's funny that he and the Lakers must be playing so well, but they've needed questionable jumpball and block/charge calls in towards the end of two games in order to close them out... and the Suns have been playing very sub-par this series so far to begin with... think about it a little bit.
Oh man, I didn't see this one before... what are you talking about? Nicknames? "Bad Boys" - what would you prefer? "Back-to-back NBA Champion Detroit Pistons" (1989 and 1990)? Laimbeer once tackled Kevin McHale and that had nothing to do with "fighting for position" and pushed Charles Barkley in the back and thrown a punch at him.
You've pretty much made a terrible point that did not address what I said aside from the fact that I cited many sportswriters and media individuals that said he "pushed" not "slammed" Artest in the throat. Don't get me wrong - the paraellel I draw from that situation to this one is that Big Ben (and beer throwing fan) did what everyone in the league wanted to at that time - take Ron Artest down a notch and I don't blame him for it at all. Raja pretty much did the same thing to Kobe last night... sometimes people lose their tempers on the court and grab another guy by the neck - others just try to rape a white girl in Colorado... to each his own. (Ironically, Kobe pulled a similar move to Artest but instead of lying down on the scorer's table with a smug look on his face, he "brushed his shoulders off" and wagged his finger.) I'm surprised a Detroit fan (by that I mean, a fan of the team in Detroit... the place where the biggest brawl in the history of the NBA occurred) would even try to stand up for Kobe in this situation...
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
