Comment on NBA Playoffs: West Conf. Finals - May 28, 2026
RandAlThor@lemmy.ca 3 days agoIt isn’t the reffing dude. That’s mass hysteria blinding people on social media. You can’t tell me those calls weren’t fouls. You can’t tell me performance by Wemby Fox Castle and Harper were good enough to win game 5. Every time Spurs lose lack of performance from key players have been glaring.
scytale@piefed.zip 3 days ago
Yes obviously they played well. But c’mon man, did you see any glaring wrong calls in this game? Now compare that to the last one where they were so blatant. Like game 1, this game was called evenly and the flow wasn’t interrupted with ticky tack calls.
RandAlThor@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
They were fouls man. I’m seeing fouls not called in last night’s game. Refs called it tighter in game 5. Did you see how Spurs were trucking SGA last night and only one got called? It’s deliberate. Spurs have always been physical and dirty from Pop’s days. Wemby told the subs to beat them up when they went in, in game 5. There’s a real hysteria going on in social media which the TV networks are jumping on. I dislike both teams because they will dominate the league the next 10 years and people are only seeing the one side of the coin. Spurs are dominant, and they are dirtier.
scytale@piefed.zip 2 days ago
It’s not about the fouls, it’s about calling the game evenly. If they allow one team to be super physical, then let the other team be physical as well. If they want to call ticky tack fouls on one end, then call it the same the other way. I don’t care about OKC’s physical defense, as long as their opponents are allowed to do the same to them (which they aren’t most of the time).
Carter Bryant made a rookie mistake. Dude’s like a baby elephant, still not aware how strong he is and still can’t control himself. That’s why he’s been a foul machine the entire series, and he has been called for a foul every single time. The refs are calling it right.
You say people are jumping into hysteria while at the same time claiming that. Nobody knows what Wemby said to Plumlee. Isn’t that giving into hysteria? Now compare that to Chet deliberately stomping on Wemby’s foot on live TV, or Hartenstein pulling Castle down by his hair. Or some of Caruso’s steals that are basically hacking the player’s arms. Those are in 4K on everyone’s TVs. Hell, I’m glad Dort has been unplayable this series because that means he’s not on the floor most of the time, which means less chances of an injury. Just because Spurs had a dirty player in Bowen more than a decade ago, it doesn’t mean their current roster is full of dirty players.
RandAlThor@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
Then you aren’t watching Spurs defense. They are just as physical if not MORE than OKC. You don’t see all the quick pushing pulling slapping that SGA suffers at the hands of Castle or other Spurs wing defenders? Don’t just watch the ball. Wemby elbowing Naz in the throat, or telling Bismack coming into the game when the game was all over to lay the wood and then they proceeded to do just that? Or did you not see Bryant who’s much bigger and heftier than the thin SGA literally ramming him 2 possessions in a row?
Pop loved Bowen. He did the dirty job Pop wanted. Otherwise he would have been gone. I still remember how battered and bruised Nash was in his series against Spurs. I’d never seen a player get bruised like a boxer at the end of a fight from a basketball game. To this day. Spurs PR has been good. Pop’s a great orator and speaks well and talks the right values. He also knows how to play dirty to win. And he did.
mill_city@lemmy.zip 3 days ago
The thing people don’t seem to understand about the way the NBA has refused to penalize that entire team of floppers, is that when the officiating crew decides to reward that unbecoming behavior, it changes the way the game is played. Now you have a team that can freely attack the hoop and the other team feels obligated to give them space to do so out of fear that they’ll foul out if they don’t. It’s a completely different ballgame at that point, and the product is completely unwatchable. I will never understand why the NBA doesn’t just enforce the actual rules that they still have on the books about this. It was a problem fifteen years ago when they first started fining players, and there is no question about the fact that it’s a much larger problem now that all could have been avoided with even moderate enforcement of the actual rules.