NBA playoffs (NBA haters stay away)
 

In the Boston Atlanta game the other night, there was an interesting situation. Bill Kennedy called a foul in the open floor and was bowled over by JR Smith in the process. Kennedy was lucky he wasn't seriously hurt. What was unique is that we got a rare close up of the interaction between Kennedy and Steve Javie. Before getting back up, Kennedy verified with Javie that the foul was on Smith and that it wasn't a clear path foul. Neat to see that he was still focused on reporting the call even though he had been knocked down pretty hard.

And last night in a very physical game in LA, there were 5 technicals and a flagrant 2 foul called. Joe Crawford called every technical and the flagrant as far as I could tell. The NBA brass might have suspended him last year but you've got to think they were glad he was doing the game last night. He took control the way you expect a veteran crew chief to do so.

I thought the same exact thing about Crawford. He's the man! He didn't really and truly call the flagrant. He was the one who went to the monitor and confirmed it though.

Glad to see there is at least 1 NBA viewer on this site. haha

NBA Question?
 

Atlanta vs Cleveland tonight. Early second quarter. Cszerbiak (sp) makes a nice spin move and banks the ball in on a nice fall away jumper. He falls to the ground. Two Cleveland bench players in sweats, jump up and onto the court and help him to his feet so he can hustle down court to get back on D as the ball is going the other way quickly. Anything in the NBA rules on that?

It sure looked weird as I can't recall ever seeing it in one of my HS games.

Joe Crawford and the rest of the crew were certainly on top of things and did what I think was a good job in maintaining order. Quick question:

The Ron Artest ejection. Almost all the talking heads at ESPN, TNT, etc, were commenting on how Ron shouldn't of been ejected. I thought the fact that Artest jogged almost the length of the court to confront Kobe, and the fact that after Joe got between the two and he was still being demonstrative and confrontational even after being told to calm down, made the ejection all that easier. Thoughts?

That kind of display shouldn't be allowed at any level. what does it have to do with basketball?

No brainer. Crawford had already had to go into both teams huddles to warn the teams that the jawing was getting out of hand.

Bryant as usual, gets the benefit of doubt as he wasn't suspended for an elbow above the shoulders.

Serious question, what's a clear path foul?

If a fast break starts in a team’s backcourt and a defender fouls any offensive player when the team is going to score an easy basket, a clear path foul has occurred. When the foul happens, no defender can be ahead of the ball where he could establish a position between the ball and the basket.

**2 shots and the ball side out

From everything I saw, that elbow was below shoulder level.

I'm pretty surprised that Artest got a Flagrant 2 in Game 3 against the Lakers. Looked like an intentional to me at worst.

Intentional fouls are not in the NBA rulebook

My bad. Flagrant 1 then? Maybe I'm not surprised seeing that it was Artest. I just don't think it normally would merit an ejection.

The end of the Mavs/Nuggets game shows in a nutshell everything that is wrong with the NBA.

A team is upset that they committed an illegal act (fouled) on purpose in an attempt to benefit from it and lost when the official didn't reward them by whistling it and opponent was able to play through the contact and make the winning shot despite it.

The "league" is now even publicly stating the officials missed the foul on the play. :(

So much for competing with honor and actually trying to play good, legal defense against the opponent. Here\'s an idea, instead of trying to gain an advantage through an illegal act, make a great play and block the shot.

The guys just don\'t get it.

I just saw the replay. I can see why there was no foul called. The defender bounced off the Carmelo and Carmelo continued to play. There could have been a foul called, but there wasn\'t one called. Life goes on. This is the very reason I stopped watching the NBA on a regular basis for years. Every thing that happens is about whining. And the Dallas Mavericks are at the top of this.

Peace

Here\'s an Article on the "Non-Call" in the Nuggets/Mavs Game