i thought it was called pretty well and they didnt call some fouls that the spurs committed last night, so i think it balances out. last night, fouls weren’t the reason we gave up our lead, that’s only a cop-out (however you spell it).

as long as crawford isn’t reffing our games, then there is no fouling conspiracy. though i do think kobe gets lots of calls that are questionable, but duncan probably does as well.

oh yeah and i forgot, please delete this post. this is embarassing

I’m not one of those people who think fans shouldn’t complain about referees. (I think players and coaches should avoid it, but what else are fans supposed to do?) But i think you are completely wrong in this instance. The game was called well, we got some calls, the Lakers got some calls and it all evened out in the end. This kind of crap just makes it more difficult to talk about when we actually do get hosed (i.e. game 5 of last series).

BABs is sounding like a Phoenix Suns fan.

I personally saw :

2 dunks for Gasol that Tim or someone else (KT? Horry?) got a piece of, and you could not tell until replay (and even on 1 it was iffy) if he was fouled. No call.
2 drives by Fisher that resulted in Bowen or Tim colliding with him and altering his shot. No call.
The strip by Fisher on Ginobili looked clean, he got whistled for it—the ref right next to them did not blow the whistle.
Tim went to the FT line the most of anyone on the floor. That is saying A OCEANFUL when you are considering one of the people on the floor is Mr. Kobe Bean Bryant, aka “I get whatever call I want when I want.”
Tim got called for a no-touch foul on Turiaf, 2 minutes later Turiaf gets the whistle blown on him 2 straight times for the exact same thing.

The level these refs let the players play was astonishing. I was amazed at the cheap craptastic touch fouls they were calling left and right, and when people (including Kobe and Parker, esp.) drove to the hoop, they didn’t get the call at all. For as much as Kobe should have gotten the whistle for Laker fans in the 2nd half, Parker should have gotten the whistle in the 1st. If you want to say ANYTHING at all about the refereeing messsing up the Spurs, it’s the type of fouls they were calling (no charge fouls, no flop fouls, no drive fouls, just ticky-tack touch fouls.) The fact that Bowen made it all the way to 1/2 way through the 3rd quarter with only 2 fouls when touch fouls were being called left and right is downright astounding.

And yes, if Joey Crawford (Not Dan Crawford) officiates a game, then the gloves are off here…..

Come on, the officials were not even remotely the reason why the Spurs lost in game one. They did make mistakes (they always do), but they were better than the average, IMHO, and bad calls went both ways.

I agree with Babs. I reviewed this game over and over and I tried to be bias about it. They’re were a lot of calls that didn’t go our way. I placed a lot of them in another in another post for everyone to see. Sometimes it might sound a bit whiny to blame a ref but you cannot take this part out of the game’s equation. Even if Refs aren’t intentionally making poor calls then they are intentionally missing calls. This game and game 5 in the Lakers/Jazz series showed that. That was a pivotal game for Utah and they couldn’t get past any calls to win. Look at the ref who was fixing games for his gambling debts. Look at Pete Rose who supposedly played differently in his games. Look at SpyGate with the Patriots. Look at wrestling. Things that we can’t control out there happens. I mean wouldn’t you want to know the truth if your favorite team that you so desperately support year after year doesn’t have the support of the NBA officials? Granted, we let a 20 pt lead slip away but a lot of the calls that I mention in the other thread show that they happen when we lost the lead. I think this is one important aspect that people leave out. Do you ever wonder why so many NBA players question the Refs after they supposedly get hit? It happens, but I don’t want to see it.

The refs weren’t the total reason for this loss. But they played a big part despite some of the above comments. I don’t care that calls sometimes balance themselves out. These refs need to get the calls right and don’t have any make up calls. How can you play in such a way? But you have to remember they are human but I don’t want to think they are out there to help or ruin a team because of low ratings.

That’s my opinion! And I’m sure everyone else has theirs. But you can’t deny that there are some flaws with this officiating.

Refereeing is out there and it’s a part of the game.

Not trying to whine here but I reviewed the game for a second time. First of all I want to say that the Spurs lost this game. I’ve said in an earlier blog that one of the things I hate most about my beloved team is that sometimes they blow leads. They did it three times in game 7 against the Hornets and they did it three times in game 1. They had a smaller leads in the first & second quarters and then in the third they led by max 20 pts. And if anyone has followed the Spurs they know what I’m talking about.

However, I did see a number of calls that I didn’t like. I tried to be very bias on this because I don’t want to seem like I’m whining I just want the facts ma’am.

- 1st Quarter: 7:48 Odom drives to basket. Oberto has position and draws blocking foul. He clearly had position and was outside the restricted area and was there before Odom. I still hate these kind of fouls.

- 1st Quarter: 0:29 Farmar gives elbow in Thomas chest. No call

- 2nd Quarter: 10:42 Odom in the lane for 5 sec; no call

- 2nd Quarter: 9:03 There’s a foul on Duncan guarding Turiaf. I replayed over and over and Tim did not touch him. Turiaf goes to the line for one pt

- 2nd Quarter: 8:22 TNT plays Ginobli bounce passes/dribbles between opponents legs. I enjoyed that!

- 2nd Quarter: 6:24 Ime gets a foul called on him for throwing down Odom. Once again a yell by Odom but I didn’t see a throw down.

- 2nd Quarter: 5:56 Tony gets called for a foul on Farmar. Ref called a hold; If there was one it wasn’t much to call.

- 2nd Quarter: 4:17 Odom in lane for six seconds. And then scores. You can even hear Ginobli say 3 seconds; but no call.

- 2nd Quarter: 3:55 Parker drives to right side of lane; gets tripped or reach in by Vujachich and Ref calls a turnover on Parker.

Meanwhile these calls and a few that I didn’t even mention are slowly destroying the lead. Touch foul on Duncan & Gasol hits free throws.

- 2nd Quarter: 3:09 Fisher loses ball out of bounds; might be wrong on this one, but two refs are there to see it and they give the ball back to the Lakers.

- 3rd Quarter: 10:47 Fisher runs around screens and into Ginobli underneath basket. I looked that one over. Manu already has his shoulder positioned. Foul on Ginobli as Fisher falls to the floor.

- 3rd Quarter: 9:26 Oberto called for 3 seconds. You could see the Ref was only looking at him the entire time. It shouldn’t have been a 3 second call.

- 3rd Quarter: 8:52 Duncan gets called for traveling. If you look he does not travel. But it’s called. We still have lead but it’s possible Refs trying to change that.

- 3rd Quarter: 4:42 Bryant tries for the rebound under his basket but he doesn’t have position. He allegedly gets pushed by Ime. There was no foul there, just (yeahhh) and then foul. I think I’ve heard Kobe and Odom yell quite a few times for fouls.

- 3rd Quarter: 3:55 Bryant drives to basket gets allegedly fouled by Ime. It was a clean block. There should’ve been no foul called.

- 3rd Quarter: 3:38 Duncan clearly gets fouled by Gasol as he shoots. No call.

- 3rd Quarter: 2:39 Ginobli & Vujachich get tangled up. Offensive foul called on Manu. It should’ve been a no call. Both are floppers.

- 3rd Quarter: 0:58 Kobe travels. You can clearly see him move his pivot foot. I have seen some Spurs do this one as well, but this was pretty blatant and right in front of the ref.

- 3rd Quarter: 0:27 Gasol in the paint for 5 seconds, no call.

- 4th Quarter: 11:43 Kobe falls to the floor and calls time. I’m not too sure on this one, but it looks like he traveled. No call.

- 4th Quarter: 10:47 Bruce & Sasha collide. It almost looked as if Bruce was the instigator but I couldn’t tell if Sasha was flopping as well. But Vujuachich was pissed afterwards!

- 4th Quarter: 10:03 Bruce gets a moving screen by Turiaf. 1 second later and Kobe scores on a jumper. No call.

- 4h Quarter: 8:05 Oberto gets fouled by Odom underneath the basket. There wasn’t a call made for us. Eventhough Oberto might have been in the paint for about 4 seconds.

- 4th Quarter: 6:56 Odom is underneath is own basket and gets a foul called. But which Spur hit him? No one. He just yelled again and fell on his own.

- 4th Quarter 5:50, Gasol goes up for a defensive rebound and yells. If you look at the replay, there’s no way he can get it. You do see Duncan behind him, but this is the playoffs there wasn’t much contact there and Duncan does have his hand on Gasol’s back, but again Gasol couldn’t have gotten that board. That’s why Gasol yelled to get the call. Foul on Duncan

- 4th Quarter: 4:32 Fisher gets ball drives to hoop and gets fouled. I could not see any Spur foul him. Fisher hits two free throws. Spurs still stuck at 81.

- 4th Quarter: 1:04 Duncan gets rebound, Gasol clearly hits Duncan’s arm, no foul, but another turnover for the Spurs with a missed shot.

- 4th Quarter: Duncan shoots and doesn’t get foul called. Both Gasol and Odom are all over him.

- 4th Quarter: 0:25 Kobe clearly pushes off on Bowen to get easy shot in the lane, no call for Spur.

- 4th Quarter: 0:12, this one’s debatable. Towards end of the game, Ginobli goes for a three. Vujacich (Spelling) possibly hits Manu on the arm. I can’t be for sure on this one. But that could’ve been three free throws.

This was very painful for me to review this video again. I like taping the games because it pains me to see my Spurs lose and I like watching them win they win. This was very similar to game 5 of the Lakers/Jazz series. Utah totally outplayed the Lakers at the Staple Center but couldn’t beat them. There were a ton of calls in that one that went against Utah. That game 5 was extremely pivotal and Utah ended up losing. I don’t want to see that kind of refereeing. Please don’t get me wrong there were a few calls that might have benefitted the Lakers in our game 1. But these bad calls that I wrote about mostly came at the critical times that we had leads and also at the end of the game. The Spurs in my opinion have never gotten much from the Refs even with the past four championships. I’ve heard before that some refs don’t call as much for visiting teams because of the crowd. And how can you blame them sometimes. Crowds yelling this and that and sometimes it’s hard to see every play. But I saw this in the Utah series and I’ve seen it in game one of our series.

Again, I don’t want to sound like this whining but look at the video again (if you doesn’t pain you) and you’ll see it. I might be wrong on a couple of things, but I don’t think I’m wrong on a lot of this.

I’m still upset that the Spurs lost a 20 pt lead. I think they were finally exhausted. It has to demoralize a team if they don’t get some calls.

I tell you I don’t want to look at this kind of stuff again. I do have a life. And it pains me to see us lose like this. I don’t want to blame the refs for the entire game. We did have some legitimate turnovers and we didn’t make some free throws. But certain calls at critical times took us out of the game. Last, Ginobli needs to bounce back. He if starts scoring with our big three and bench. LA should be concerned. However, they might not have to be concerned if the officiating is the same in game 2.

A Kindergarten teacher tells her class she’s a BIG Spurs fan.
She’s really excited about it and asks the kids if they’re Spurs fans too.

Everyone wants to impress the teacher and says they’re Spurs fans too, except ONE kid, ...named Josh.

The teacher looks at Josh and says, "Josh, you’re not a Spurs fan?"

He says, "Nope, I’m a Los Angeles Lakers fan!" She says, "Well why are you a Los Angeles Lakers fan and not a Spurs fan?"

Josh says, "Well, my mom is a Lakers fan, and my dad is a Lakers fan, so I’m a Lakers fan."

The teacher’s not real happy. She’s a little hot under the collar. She says, "WELL, if your MOMS an IDIOT, and your DADS a MORON, THEN WHAT WOULD YOU BE?!"

Josh says, "THEN I’D BE a SPURS FAN!!"

NUFF SAID….

if the spurs would not have missed so many WIDE OPEN shots- we would not be discussing this right now- we had our chances- if gino would have nailed the 3- wed all be sayin whew that was close but great game. fuck it- we lost game 1. big fucken deal. we still put up a 20 pt lead on em. were gonna do it again except this time not let them back in the game. the best team will win in a 7 game series. the best team is the SPURS!! I cant wait to the “PISSED OFF” SPURS play tonight. ITS ON!!! OH YES, ITS MOST DEFINITELY ON!!

I think it’s fucking, not fucken. :) GAME ON

I’m late to the party, but that Gane 1 loss was definitely not due to the refs. Gotta keep it real, give the Lakers credit for making big shots when they needed to.

I’m gonna go ahead and be the one to throw you a bone, Babs. Your first post ever, and you’re destroyed….. that’s gotta suck. Right on, the refs caused our Game 1 loss and were likely responsible for Game 2’s as well. And rising gas prices, this week’s Colorado tornado and a puppy dying somewhere in Missouri.

Thanks for the input and your post, even though you got toasted. Welcome to PtR. Be cautious in the future.

Sorry I wasn’t able to get in on the on this when I posted and I want to thank a few of you for giving me the business! It’s all good. So let me get the record straight. Male first off and second I wasn’t saying that the Ref’s caused us the game I was just give a point of view that I see many times in games. You got to play the game and you can’t let anything stop you from doing that. You guys gave good and bad points so I thank you for that and I will make sure after my posts that I stick around so I can defend my point of view. This is going to be way too much fun with you guys!!!!