NBA Game 5- <i>Redux</i>

[Jurassic Referee]

Just to have a little fun and see how many fanboys pop out of the woodwork, I'll post this interview with Mike Mathis, a retired NBA official who worked quite a few Finals. Enjoy.....

http://www.getsportsinfo.com/lance/mikemathis.mp3

Fanboys should love that one. According to Mathis, his fellow officials, old partners and used-to-be-friends(probably) royally screwed up both the timeout and Nowitzki's foul. He also notes that, generally, the officials now in the NBA are all terrible- except for him, of course.

Before all the Mav's fanboys get too indignant though, you should know that Mathis has got his own axe to grind with the NBA front office. He thought that they screwed him by not backing him up when he got convicted for income tax evasion. He served a year's suspension before being reinstated, then he had to retire a coupla years later under a "disability retirement", supposedly because of his knees. Personally, I think that you can just label him under "disgruntled ex-official" and forget about him.

http://www.enquirer.com/editions/200...ef_mathis.html

Have at it, fanboys......

[Dan_ref]

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald...iherald_sports

[Jurassic Referee]

Originally Posted by Dan_ref

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald...iherald_sports

Good article, Dan. The sad part is that if Miami lose the next 2 games, and if the games are close, you'll be reading stories in the same paper about how the officials screwed the Heat. You can take that to the bank.

[Dan_ref]

Originally Posted by Jurassic Referee

Good article, Dan. The sad part is that if Miami lose the next 2 games, and if the games are close, you'll be reading stories in the same paper about how the officials screwed the Heat. You can take that to the bank.

To me the interesting thing is that every year the NBA officials become the center of all sorts of consiracy theories. The real consipracy is the NBA office encourages this publicity to keep the playoffs in the news. If they didn't want it it would stop.

[M&M Guy]

I may be going out on a limb here, but I have a feeling there will be a small transfer of wealth between Mark Cuban and the NBA's offices for his comment to David Stern, "Your league is rigged!".

[Jurassic Referee]

Originally Posted by M&M Guy

I may be going out on a limb here, but I have a feeling there will be a small transfer of wealth between Mark Cuban and the NBA's offices for his comment to David Stern, "Your league is rigged!".

$250K- just announced.

[M&M Guy]

Originally Posted by Jurassic Referee

$250K- just announced.

Doesn't that put him at almost $1.5 million in fines to the NBA?

Maybe the money doesn't mean as much to him, but even I would learn after the first coupla' hundred thou.

[zebraman]

How lame that an official who made it all the way to the top now calls the NBA hiring practices "a good old boy network." It seems that every disgruntled official likes to pull out that tired excuse.

Z

[Damian]

He was on the radio this morning in Dallas.

[icallfouls]

Originally Posted by Jurassic Referee

Just to have a little fun and see how many fanboys pop out of the woodwork, I'll post this interview with Mike Mathis, a retired NBA official who worked quite a few Finals. Enjoy.....

http://www.getsportsinfo.com/lance/mikemathis.mp3

Fanboys should love that one. According to Mathis, his fellow officials, old partners and used-to-be-friends(probably) royally screwed up both the timeout and Nowitzki's foul. He also notes that, generally, the officials now in the NBA are all terrible- except for him, of course.

Before all the Mav's fanboys get too indignant though, you should know that Mathis has got his own axe to grind with the NBA front office. He thought that they screwed him by not backing him up when he got convicted for income tax evasion. He served a year's suspension before being reinstated, then he had to retire a coupla years later under a "disability retirement", supposedly because of his knees. Personally, I think that you can just label him under "disgruntled ex-official" and forget about him.

http://www.enquirer.com/editions/200...ef_mathis.html

I did not listen to the entire interview, but I did find his comments about the time out interesting. I agreed with what he said. It would seem that when the 3 officials met that the time out would have been given following the second FT because the T would have said something along the lines of "they want the time out after the 2nd FT." However it really shouldn't have gotten that far.

It would have been better game management (I would have tried very hard) not to recognize the time out by JHoward because if I was DeRosa, and had all the experience that goes with it, I know that it is very likely that they want the TO after the 2nd FT. By the way, Howard was roughly 10 feet away, not looking at DeRosa, and the TO signal looked as if he was trying to confirm with Coach in the clips that I saw. Also, it would have been easy to just ask, "do you want it now, or after the FT?"

[Raymond]

Originally Posted by icallfouls

By the way, Howard was roughly 10 feet away, not looking at DeRosa, and the TO signal looked as if he was trying to confirm with Coach in the clips that I saw. Also, it would have been easy to just ask, "do you want it now, or after the FT?"

To me it looks like Howard started heading towards the bench after signalling the 2nd time. I haven't heard or read any interviews from Josh Howard but the look on his face afterwards seemed to be of the "I f****d that up" variety.

[BktBallRef]

Originally Posted by BadNewsRef

To me it looks like Howard started heading towards the bench after signalling the 2nd time. I haven't heard or read any interviews from Josh Howard but the look on his face afterwards seemed to be of the "I f****d that up" variety.

EXACTLY! I've said this over and over again. You see Howard's head turn toward DeRosa, his hands come together in front of him and he starts to walk towards the Mavs bench. DeRosa then whistles the TO. Now why is he walking toward his bench away from the FT lane if he didn't request TO?

Then he did indeed have the stupid "I ****ed up look" on his face.

[Jurassic Referee]

Originally Posted by icallfouls

I did not listen to the entire interview, but I did find his comments about the time out interesting. I agreed with what he said.

You agree with what he said, even though neither of you has ever talked to the officials involved in the play about the play, and neither of you were privy to the conversations out on the floor either?

Hmmmmmmm.....interesting......

Two of a kind, I guess. Crucify the officials without hearing their side.

[icallfouls]

Originally Posted by Jurassic Referee

You agree with what he said, even though neither of you has ever talked to the officials involved in the play about the play, and neither of you were privy to the conversations out on the floor either?

Hmmmmmmm.....interesting......

Two of a kind, I guess. Crucify the officials without hearing their side.

JR, again you are taking comments out of context and spinning them. I was not crucifying anyone. Perhaps I should have been clearer. I merely said how it could have been handled with all circumstances being the same, based on what I was able to see from my living room. I also offered a suggestion that could benefit others if a similar situation were to arise.

If it matters, I disagree with the official speaking ill of his former colleagues and selling them out. I was speaking more to the issue of handling the TO request.

I also saw Salvatori try to shuttle the players back onto the floor. It appeared to be in an effort to wait until the 2nd FT was attempted.

[Jurassic Referee]

Originally Posted by icallfouls

I also saw Salvatori try to shuttle the players back onto the floor. It appeared to be in an effort to wait until the 2nd FT was attempted.

See, right there is what I personally don't agree with. You said that it appears that was what Salvatore was trying to do. Jeffpea basically said the same thing. However, none of us really know what actually went on out on the court. The only people that know for sure are Crawford, DeRosa and Salvatore, and the crew chief- Crawford- said that they had no choice but to give out the TO at that time. Absent any concrete information, I personally have no reason to doubt what the officials are saying. Apparently others do. That's OK though because we're talking about "opinions" here, and everybody is certainly entitled to their own. You're entitled to disagree with mine just as much as I'm entitled to disagree with yours.

Also, jeffpea made a comment about DeRosa being a "rule book official", as opposed to being a "game management official". Here's my opinion on that, so feel free to slice'n'dice me too if you want. When you hit the NBA Finals, you're looking at the twelve best officials in the NBA. Every single one of them is a "rule book official". Aamof, every official in the NBA is a "rule book official". The NBA will tolerate their officials missing a call or making a mistake in judgement. The NBA will not tolerate an official blowing or misapplying a rule during a game. My understanding is an NBA official will be suspended/fined immediately if they screw up a rule, and if they do it again they might be on the path to becoming history. All NBA officials are expected to know the rules perfectly from the git-go iow. From there, the officials get graded on other aspects, including game management. I think that it would be highly unlikely that an official would be graded highly enough to make the top twelve in the league and would not also have superior game management skills. Personally, I just can't envison Joe DeRosa or any other Finals' official being put in that spot without having excellent game management skills to go along with a good knowledge of the rules. Jmo.