Seriously, he should try to break that habit of clearing out his opponent with his non-shooting arm. It's an easy call for a ref to make. He's got til spring, so no sweat.
What's with the refs missing the grabbing of the jersey calls this season. It's bad enough they miss the obvious foul, but then they turn around and call a foul on the guy whose jersey was grabbed. They missed Anthony Morrow grabbing Rudy's jersey at the end of the Golden State game, called the foul on Rudy and then hit him with a T - essentially costing the Blazers that game. Then today, O'Neal was yanking on the back of Oden's jersey with one hand while hacking him with the other and they called the clear out on Oden and negated his basket (and FT). Yes, Oden did push off with his off arm, but it was a response to O'Neal trying to rip the shirt off his back - and it almost cost Portland the game. I can see one ref being out of position and missing these kinds of calls, but why can't/don't one of the other refs overrule them - or at least huddle together and discuss the call. In the old days, refs used to do this frequently. If one ref had a better angle, or saw something the ref who blew the whistle missed, they would discuss it, reach a consensus and make the correct call. Now, thanks in part to Tim Donaghy there's this paranoia that anytime two refs discuss something they are trying to fix a game and cover the point spread. Geez, the best way to silence the conspiracy theorists is to MAKE THE CORRECT CALL. Nobody can accuse you of fixing a game when the calls you make are correct and supported by the replays. Blowing such obvious calls late in close games is EXACTLY what fuels the conspiracy fires. BNN
16-5 last year in games decided by five or less, and this season has a similar percentage if not higher. Seemingly, it is a repeatable skill, as it should be with good teams.
Just thought I'd let everybody on here know how happy I am that we won! I can't figure out why people on here actually complain after a great win like this. Go Blazers!
Oden's best game to date, easily. And he's starting to get in better shape. Hell, he even looks a bit slimmer/more athletic. Still needs to work on his hand strength, though, so the ball doesn't get slapped out so easily.
My understanding is that statistically it has been demonstrated NOT to be a repeatable skill. I know that is the case for baseball teams, but I am not 100% sure for the NBA. In any case, 1.25 seasons is not any sort of statistically significat repetition. Ed O.
Heh, I'll take positive repetition whether or not it's significant. I think this goes along with that stat last year about how Nate and the Blazers were the best team in the NBA on the possession coming out of a timeout. Since close games and timeouts usually go hand-in-hand, and since there are more timeouts in a game than the ones used at the end, I think there might be something there. I think they win those games because they do come up with something that works.
I agree. Lot of posts to read through, but I enjoy doing it. I slept through the game. Woke up just in time to see my Cowboys blow it against the Steelers in HD.
Speaking of close games from MB's Blog. Hmmm, might have something to do with Roy. When I first read that I couldn't understand why it wasn't just 8-0 since they were 3 and less so of course 4 and less. Then I figured that part of the 8 must be from last year. Ok, I'm slow at times.
