***Official NBA Thread***

[dontcloseyoureyes]

Haha, how was Artest's foul a Flagrant 2?! It wasn't even a flagrant 1!

 

[duffer]

It was barely a hard foul but his reputation got him the F2. Joey Crawford and David Stern can go **** themselves. Kobe can throw elbows whenever he wants, Garnett can talk **** and smack around whoever he wants yet other players who are considered "thugs" can do nothing particularly bad and get the full brunt.

Worst officiated league in the world.

 

[Johnners]

NRL disagrees.

 

[dontcloseyoureyes]

NRL disagrees.

No way, NRL is reffed pretty reasonably but so much is made of refereeing mistakes in league (more than any sport I've ever seen, itbt.)

 

[duffer]

Anyone see Cuban go nuts on the cameraman? And Josh Howard do his best Drogba impersonation?

Haha wow, the Mavs shouldn't be complaining about one call, they had the refs giving them anything close to a foul today and went to the foul line 49 frigging times.

20 seconds to go with a 2 point lead and possession with 17 seconds on the shot clock. No excuses that they managed to choke it away. Damn, I love Melo.

 

[dontcloseyoureyes]

Yao out for the playoffs and so are the Rockets now.

Hawks falling to pieces after Zaza had a brain fart and got himself tossed. Lebron on absolute fire, carried the guys on his shoulders for the whole first half. 41 and counting.

 

[duffer]

Where amazing happens

Condolences to Fusion but after hearing Carlisle bitch and moan 3 games in a row about the refs and completely ignoring the boneheaded plays he and his team made I have little sympathy for them. Never bought into the "Mavs/Dirk are chokers" thing but today's lat 30 seconds were spectacular.

Up 4 they allow Melo to walk into the paint for a dunk and only 2 second off the clock. Then the next play with plenty of time to run down the clock Dirk chucks up a stupid early shot which allowed Denver 7 seconds to make something happen. Then Wright goes for the weakest intentional foul you'll ever see and even puts his arm up as if to say "I didn't do anything" after the attempt.

People need to give props to Melo for how clutch he is. He's .500 on game winning attempts since he joined the league, in that same period of time ESPN's ice-man Kobe is a whopping 14/56 on game winners. With him and Chauncey on the same team they have so much up their sleeve in tight games.

 

[dontcloseyoureyes]

Where amazing happens

Oh God, I lol'd.

Love Nuggz, deffo my new team.

 

[duffer]

Oh God, I lol'd.

Love Nuggz, deffo my new team.

The original and best one. The Mavs actually did get hosed that series.

For a nuggets theme this is possibly my favourite Denver youtube of all time. Watched it a million times and still can't believe he did that.

 

[dontcloseyoureyes]

wow @ Brooks.

 

[Fusion]

Where amazing happens

Condolences to Fusion but after hearing Carlisle bitch and moan 3 games in a row about the refs and completely ignoring the boneheaded plays he and his team made I have little sympathy for them. Never bought into the "Mavs/Dirk are chokers" thing but today's lat 30 seconds were spectacular.

Up 4 they allow Melo to walk into the paint for a dunk and only 2 second off the clock. Then the next play with plenty of time to run down the clock Dirk chucks up a stupid early shot which allowed Denver 7 seconds to make something happen. Then Wright goes for the weakest intentional foul you'll ever see and even puts his arm up as if to say "I didn't do anything" after the attempt.

People need to give props to Melo for how clutch he is. He's .500 on game winning attempts since he joined the league, in that same period of time ESPN's ice-man Kobe is a whopping 14/56 on game winners. With him and Chauncey on the same team they have so much up their sleeve in tight games.

The more you complain, the more likely you are to end up on the wrong end of officiating decisions. Properly fouling and leaving no doubt what your intent was would’ve helped Mr. Wright. And of course, as Jason Kidd said after the game, not leaving yourself vulnerable to be in that position in the first place would’ve prevented the whole thing. Mavs are obviously done. Go Rockets!

As an aside, the antics of Cuban at the end of the game were despicable. I love Cuban as an owner. He took possibly the worst franchise in professional sports in the ‘90’s and helped turned them around into a Championship contender and a perennial winner. If only he’d stop there and not let his personality define the team. He can’t help himself and whines like a baby every single time. Now there are reports out there that he told K-Mart’s mother that her son is a “thug”. Wow, that’s just disgusting.

 

[duffer]

The more you complain, the more likely you are to end up on the wrong end of officiating decisions. Properly fouling and leaving no doubt what your intent was would’ve helped Mr. Wright. And of course, as Jason Kidd said after the game, not leaving yourself vulnerable to be in that position in the first place would’ve prevented the whole thing. Mavs are obviously done. Go Rockets!

As an aside, the antics of Cuban at the end of the game were despicable. I love Cuban as an owner. He took possibly the worst franchise in professional sports in the ‘90’s and helped turned them around into a Championship contender and a perennial winner. If only he’d stop there and not let his personality define the team. He can’t help himself and whines like a baby every single time. Now there are reports out there that he told K-Mart’s mother that her son is a “thug”. Wow, that’s just disgusting.

Cuban is a guy who's living the dream, a passionate fan who was rich enough to buy his struggling team. I admire how into the game and team he is, but a lot of the times he seems like a grown man acting like a 16 yo high school punk.

From his ego-tripping pre match bike riding press conferences, his one man crusade against the NBA officials, to his confrontations with JR Smith, running on the floor acting like an ass whenever he wanted to.

A story I heard from Game 1 in the series was Cuban talking trash to all the Denver fans about their city for a full 15 minutes like he was godly only for Daniel Graham and a couple of bigger Broncos players who were sitting behind him get in his face and watch him cower. It was on youtube before but someone took it down unfortunately.

That said if I was a Dalls fan I'd never want the guy to leave. For all his antics and knucklehead behaviour it's a lot more fun supporting a team that wins 50 games a season than loses 50 games. He's there for the love of the game and not to leach off the fans and line his pockets(like 99% of sports owners). He'll always pay through the nose to try and build a winner for you guys. It'd be nice if he grew up a bit though.

EDIT: An awesome article on the Chauncey Billups story here.

 

[Fusion]

What a game by Dirk last night. 44 points (19 in the 4th qtr) and 13 rebounds. He fought like a warrior, showed some pride, and didn’t let his team get swept out of the playoffs. I’ve always believed that Dirk is a special player. He’s a matchup nightmare for every single team out there. No one can guard him one-on-one. It’s just that he’s not Kobe or Lebron (and how many in the league are at that level?). Dirk can’t carry the team to a championship by himself like the aforementioned guys can. He needs help. He needs his Chauncey or Gasol or Parker etc. Someone that can score along with him (or even take over a game) when he gets tripled team. I fear that help will never arrive in Dallas and either Dirk will be traded away or finish his career without a ring in Dallas.

 

[Fusion]

Cuban is a guy who's living the dream, a passionate fan who was rich enough to buy his struggling team. I admire how into the game and team he is, but a lot of the times he seems like a grown man acting like a 16 yo high school punk.

From his ego-tripping pre match bike riding press conferences, his one man crusade against the NBA officials, to his confrontations with JR Smith, running on the floor acting like an ass whenever he wanted to.

A story I heard from Game 1 in the series was Cuban talking trash to all the Denver fans about their city for a full 15 minutes like he was godly only for Daniel Graham and a couple of bigger Broncos players who were sitting behind him get in his face and watch him cower. It was on youtube before but someone took it down unfortunately.

That said if I was a Dalls fan I'd never want the guy to leave. For all his antics and knucklehead behaviour it's a lot more fun supporting a team that wins 50 games a season than loses 50 games. He's there for the love of the game and not to leach off the fans and line his pockets(like 99% of sports owners). He'll always pay through the nose to try and build a winner for you guys. It'd be nice if he grew up a bit though.

I agree 100% with everything you said. I love Cuban and think he's one of the best owners in sports in terms of what he does for the team on-court. It's his off the court stuff that's hard to defend.

By the way, as proud as I was of Dirk and Mavs, I was equally disappointed by our fans in the stands. Giving trouble to Nugget’s family members was disgusting. Of course Cuban is largely to blame for this and he has apologized to Martin’s family. It will be very interesting to see how Cuban is received in Denver for Game 5. An excerpt from Cuban's apology:

"When the series comes back to Dallas, your family, and the family of other Nuggets players are welcome to stay in my suite, with my family. Its amazing how tempers mellow when real people talk to each other and realize that its still just a game.

If that isn't acceptable, I'm happy to provide a suite, free of charge to them as well and place whatever security is needed to make them feel comfortable.

We tried to have enough additional security for them tonight as well, but I know your family and friends didn't feel as comfortable as they should. I apologize for that as well. This arena is my responsibility, we could and should do a better job.

So if we can put this behind us, I will make sure when the series comes back to Dallas, your family and friends, and that of your teammates are very comfortable at our Arena.

Then I hope we both take the advice of your coach and can get together this summer. Dinner for you and your family is on me."

 

[duffer]

FWIW I think this reaction from Kmart is what caused him to hastily arrange that bogus apology.

And he's conveniently got a pre-arranged family thing on at the same time as Game 5 in Denver as well. I doubt he would have been received well there at all, reading some of the comments on Denver news sites what happened to their players wasn't exactly well received. Can see the next game getting pretty ugly.

Hope Cuban and Carlisle can stop crying about the refs as well now, they got a ridiculous number of bailout calls in that last game to make up for the one call which the refs got correct anyway in Game 4.

EDIT: And I love Chauncey :

“The pressure is on them to win the series,” Jason Kidd said. “We don’t have any pressure.”
Billups chuckled at the notion.

“We can still afford to lose,” he said. “They can’t.”

 

[Anil]

It'd be nice if he grew up a bit though.

that is masterly understatement right there, i can understand the passion for the game but when he acts like a prize prick(loud, cheap, whiny & micromanaging s.o.b), it's hard to empathize with him on anything...

 

[Anil]

So if we can put this behind us, I will make sure when the series comes back to Dallas, your family and friends, and that of your teammates are very comfortable at our Arena.

if, not when....and that is a big if

 

[duffer]

Apparently Carmelo's fiance had the n-bomb dropped at her a few times by Mavs fans.

Which is obviously why she was the one being ejected.

Hope the Nuggz do a New Orleans on them in Game 5.

 

[Anil]

the texas governor wants to secede from the union, they should let them do it...

 

[duffer]

As much as I dislike KG and Pierce their team doesn't quit. They went on a 17-3 run in the last 5 minutes to win this game. They don't quit, gotta give them that.