Does it bother anyone here the way the tides of officiating suddenly turned into a wave of devastation for the Spurs??? Really, not a single FT in the 4th Qtr for the Spurs? Up 18 late in the 3rd, and all of a sudden Memphis goes on a massive run. Tim Duncan magically gets into foul trouble, along with Tiago, and Bonner?! The lead gets cut down, and the game tied up. As a matter of fact, our next FT came off an intentional foul if memory serves me correct? Or was there one other foul resulting in FT's before that one? This was in our house. Is this what we can expect the rest of the series???
The Spurs looked damn good for 7 Qtrs. Like, running the Grizzlies off the court good, like Memphis you aren't in the Spurs league good. Then everything the Spurs bigs do is a foul, and the Spurs can LITERALLY do nothing for a FT or a foul call. That was bad, that was fishy. Tell me no one here is thinking the same thing?
The thought never crossed my mind, especially after that BS 3rd foul on Conley when he didn't touch Neal, and especially X2 when they didn't call the 5-second violation on the final inbounds play of regulation. That non-call saved the game for the Spurs.
Memphis got away with a 5 seconds no-call on their game-tying basket in regulation, too..refs were giving both teams a long leash on inbound plays, it seemed..
I'll have to go back and look at that one.
22-2 FT differential in the 3rd & 4th quarters seemed a bit... curious.
It's been statistically proven that when a team falls down big, they are more likely to get favorable whistles. It probably has less to do with officials wanting the bring the losing team back so much as they don't want to pile on the losing team by making calls against them. But it was tough to watch Duncan spend the entire second half in foul trouble in the same game where Gasol committed about 9 fouls, but only got called for half.
Memphis' offense was doing NOTHING when they were down 14-18 for most of the third, but they clawed back in via just throwing themselves into Spurs' defenders and getting bailed out (not to mention it put TD out of the game). Once the game got tight, suddenly the teams were allowed to bump & grind on the interior again.
I do think if the 3rd quarter had been officiated the same way as the other 3, Memphis wouldn't have been close enough to make a run in the 4th.
Refs sucked in this game, but they made ty calls both ways, imho
Spurs played poorly in the 4th qtr, don't get me wrong...however what bothers me was the obvious decision by the refs to call a different game coming out in the 2nd half....and more so, calling it a different way only on one side of the court. Light touch fouls, hand checks, you name it.....NONE of that was called in the first half. WHY??? If you dispute that, look at the free throws in the 2nd half...yes, the Spurs were jacking up a few too many 3's but alot of Memphis's free throws were "penalty" free throws, due to the NBA's, er I mean the ref's decision to call a different game. It's one thing to be completely one sided for a particular team, but even worse when they call it one way for one half, then completely change their style of referring in the 2nd half. That was blantantly obvious and very frustrating. We can point to all the conspiracy possibilities, TV ratings, etc.....who knows and we will never know, but if you know the game of basketball and even if you don't, it was very clear the ref's had some type of agenda in the second half to try and make the game a more compe ive game, regardless of who ultimatley would win. And to make it compe ive, they had to get Memphis back in the game. Clear as day. They weren't fooling anyone.
And this is what makes the NBA such a frustrating game to watch.
On to Memphis...and what I do like about that is the Spurs usually notch up their focus on the road big time.
I saw a lot of hard fouls that were missed and a lot of phantom no-contact fouls (for both sides). And then the flagrant on Manu? Horrible officiating, tbh
The Spurs got more calls in the 1st half, the Grizzlies got more calls in the 2nd half..
I fully agree with Rev Hill that the consistency of NBA officials is irritating, tbh..
I understand that they're going to miss calls on both sides and it usually ultimately evens out(unless you're the Lakers), but they can't decide to begin officiating a different style in the 2nd half..the way they officiate in the 1st quarter should be consistent throughout the game, tbh..
If you're allowing physicality in the 1st quarter, it doesn't make any sense to change your mind in the 3rd quarter and start calling ticky-tack , tbh..
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