What bothers me is, we'll probably also come out shooting red hot tonight. So we will "waste" our ref advantage on a night we would likely win anyways. Meh, everything helps, though.
Do you think it's coincidental? Cuban has had this story in his back pocket for ages and has a functionary feed it to a reporter who writes it up and puts it on ESPN Dallas. Smart move, Mark.
Exactly my thinking. This is bad news. The article reeks of the exact ploy Pop and Phil use to get the refs to overreact in their favor. What's more, the league could absolutely stiff us again, with Joey at the helm, and the fact that the 'anti-mavs ref' worked the game would mute any complaints on our part. I don't like it.
Looks like the fine could possibly pay off. I don't want it called lop sided in our favor either. I just want it called fair. I think we could crush the Mavs if it's called fair. Dirk would have been in foul trouble last game, if the refs just would have called the offensive fouls he had during the game.
Not conspiracy... Oh wait are you talking about the article and how it makes the reader believe that Dallas is getting hosed? If you are talking about Saturday's game... We outscored Dallas by 30+ points, scoring in the paint. They had a 16 free-throw edge on the Blazers; 19-2 in the fourth. Most of Aldridge's game was in the paint and most of Dirk's was from the perimeter, yet Dirk had 12 more attempts at the stripe. There was something extremely fishy about that.
Coincidence that Joey is working this game? Of course. Coincidence that the Mavs have a lousy record when Joey works their playoff games? Most probably. Correlation does not equal causation. (Joey is a 'top' referee in the league, the Mavs suck in the playoffs every year, Joey works their games in the playoffs.) Coincidence that Cuban has this story printed right before this game, after the officiating travesty that happened in the last game, and he expects and wants to counter an officiating "make up day"? No way in hell.
HaHaHa. Oops. I keep saying Joey. That's what I get for multi-tasking at work. Time to stop working I guess?
In only Mavericks-Blazers playoff games officiated by Danny Crawford, the Mavericks are 1-1. Maybe they should quit bitching.
I feel really good about this game. I think the Blazers are better than the Mavericks. I would not be surprised to see the Blazers blow them out. Wallace and Matthews (especially Wallace) aren't going to have games like that again. They were just missing their shots, it's not like Dallas had them in a defensive lock down. LaMarcus basically matched Dirk so they canceled each other out and I don't buy the arguement that Dirk just had an off game. I think the Blazers really defended him well and they're going to continue to do that. If Chandler starts getting called for fouls (like our bigs were) and has to sit on the bench, LA is going to go off on them. Chandler is supposedly a one of the best defensive players in the league and LA still got his numbers. In fact, if it weren't for the 13 free throws in the 4th the boxscore would show that LaMarcus out played Dirk. I know a lot of people felt like Brandon was a problem but the fact that Dallas feels they need to double him or trap gives us an advantage because it leaves someone else open. B-Roy has to make the right pass and they need to hit the shot! The only change I would make in the game plan is to put a hand in Kidd's face when he's shooting.
I took that as a nice way of them saying they knew they could disrupt his currently shaky dribble with light pressure, thus making him a zero factor.
I haven't read the article yet but in the video at the top of the link, Skip Bayless flat out says that we got jobbed by the refs in Game 1. So it wasn't just us blind Blazer "homers" that felt that way.
I also think the Blazers are better than the Mavericks. I HATE talking about the refs. With a fairly called game, I think we blow them out tonight, too. The refs had Matthews on defensive lock down with his early fouls and Wallace by their refusal to call fouls, then they had the rest of the team on lock down in the fourth with the usual NaBitchsky fourth quarter free throw parade. Those are pretty big "ifs." The Blazers can absolutely defend the Mavs, if allowed to do so. I agree with your points. So does Cuban apparently, hence his well timed article about the interesting statistical correlation between Crawford and the Mavs. The three is the key. We must continue to execute the game plan in the paint. We then have to stick the three when it is there. And make Kidd revert back to his norm.
