oregonlive is owned by the same parent company as the oregonian. I did some research on that a few years back. barfo
fair enough.. then the fans hypocritical bitching is what is annoying me now.. not the lack of professionalism lol.
You guys are being hypocritical, the Rockets fans are being the logical ones: Yao never got into foul trouble against Portland. Therefore, Yao commits few or no fouls. Yao got into foul trouble in LA. Therefore, the foul calls must be an artifact of bias officiating. Duh, it's obvious.
It's pretty common to see fans of the teams that play the Lakers complain about the officiating... and also to have Lakers fans complain about the officiating no matter who they play.
Every fanbase (not every individual fan) tends to feel that the refereeing was bad to the detriment of their team. It's simply that fans count all the borderline calls against their team as "bad calls" (and remember them) and are much more likely to see borderline calls that go the other way as deserved or "just letting the teams play." Fanbases then, angry that their team got the short end of the stick, get even more upset when the opposing fanbase claims that their team got the short end of the stick. Thus the two fanbases chastise each other for whining. It's not really hypocrisy, it's lack of self-awareness. "Yes, I hate it when fans of the other team blame officials, but my team really DID get shafted!!"
Nah, it's just as simple as when in doubt, Portland always gets screwed! This logic stuff doesn't work when it comes to refs.
Nobody on the Blazers gave Battier a knee in the face and an elbow to the back of the head when he was on the floor. If they had, the least that would have happened was the Blazer responsible getting kicked out of the game, and a suspension would have been a real possibility. I don't blame the Rocket fans for questioning whether they are getting a fair shake.
I thought it was a technical foul, but not even close to ejection with the type of contact and getting tangled up. That incident wasn't even a flagrant 2 foul with that snuggling type of touch, he wasn't Dwight Howard. In fact Artest hit Kobe harder in the head in Game 2 and I did not see a cause for ejection there either.
The bottom line is that officiating has taken more of a center stage this year than I ever remember it having before, and it's killing the game for the casual fan. The sooner the NBA realizes that all these stupid gimmicks and super star preferential treatment and "fixing" of games (yes, I do believe that refs have intentionally influenced games, not so far in this year, [no not Portland games], but Sacramento vs. LA game 6 you can't convince me that was a fairly officiated game) and gets an independent reffing organization, the better. Also, the NBA needs to put all these games on network TV. I don't have extended cable and I find myself totally removed from the playoffs now that the Blazers are out. There will be a game on ABC and I won't even know it because I haven't watched any of the other games. The NBA is really turning off the casual fan IMO, and that honestly includes me after the Blazers are out.
I didn't catch much of the Portland/Houston series. Did Yao foul your bigs all the time? He is constantly bumping and fouling Gasol, but in game 1, gut no calls against him.
