KG Said It Best:

[barefacedmonk]

I thought the reffing was balanced in the 1st half despite the discrepancy (Pierce got away with a shooting foul and KG had an uncalled travel), but the 3-ft call for Durant and the clean Pierce block were terrible, terrible calls and ruined what was otherwise a well-fought game on both sides.  You can't spot the other team 5 points in tight game that ultimately gets decided by 5 points. 

A bunch of us in the game thread were up in arms in the first half about the calls and we were counting on some balancing out in the second...and it actually got worse.

And props to nick for taking the time to put those stats up.

It got worse the better we played. We should've won this game by at least 10 points.  Maybe that was the spread. Maybe they were just trying to keep it close to cover the spread. Who knows but it's a shame. David Stern needs to retire and bring in an honest man to run the NBA. If he knows what one looks like.

Celts were favored by 3 pts. Maybe they panicked when they saw Pierce was actually suited up and decided to take it into their own hands early. Maybe it was one guy. Maybe they just don't like our players. Maybe they are getting the directions from higher up. Who knows? Maybe they legitimately tried as hard as they could and were just plain old awful.

There's no smoke without fire. Tim Donaghy couldn't have come up with 304 pages of only lies and BS. David Stern swept everything under the carpet and threw Donaghy under the bus....this whole thing goes way up. I'm not saying that the league has something against the Celtics...but a lot of games are officiated in the most ridiculous manner. Fans sitting at home make more correct calls that the Zebras masquerading as Refs.

[mmbaby]

Thanks, Nick, for the info.
If all of this really goes all the way up to the top, Stern could go to prison. It just doesn't seem possible, imo, that he would take a risk like that. But individual refs betting and throwing games is a fact as we have seen it and read about it in D.book.
The refs need to be policed. Tonight's game was bulls..t and there's no doubt about that. This whole game should be reviewed. But there's no one to do that. How about someone establishing the ref police! The only problem with that is that some corrupt individual(s) will, undoubtedly, get their fingers into this pie too. What's to be done?

[chief3233]

http://scores.espn.go.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=300331005

Unbelievable. Cavs 45 FT's to Bucks 9. Are you kidding me NBA?

[guava_wrench]

to me here is the shame.

this was one of the best played, most entertaining games of the year. both teams played hard and well. durant is amazing, as is westbrook. and it is ruined by another brutal officating game. the league has a betting/gambling/ref scandal and it is buried. here we are, not even a year later, donaghy's phone buddies still work games, the officiating has not improved, stern smugly denies there is a problem, espn does not want to tarnish the nba product, so they never bring it up.

but the league has a serious problem. and when great games by two good teams are ruined by three dorks with whistles, make no mistake, there is a problem.

Or ruined by homer announcers who present an obscenely one-sided homer view of every game.

[Billz401]

[Edited.  Personal attacks and masked profanity are not allowed.]

[PosImpos]

Or ruined by homer announcers who present an obscenely one-sided homer view of every game.

Edit:Profanity

Woah there cowboy

[Drucci]

(paraphrasing)

"It was like we were playing Michael ____ Jordan out there tonight.  He took...I think he took [dang] near as many free throws as our whole team out there.  'Aint nothing you can do."

Yep.

As a poster who is often quick to point out things the Celtics did wrong, I want to come out right now and be clear: I watched the whole game tonight and I thought the Celtics played pretty well.  I couldn't single out one thing that I thought they really failed at.  They had a hard time containing Durant (shot 50% from the floor), but he hit a lot of tough shots.  You can't blame them for that.  Bottom line, the Celtics got owned at the free throw line, despite the fact that they scored more than half of their points in the paint.  You simply cannot win under those circumstances. 

I've made this offer before: I'll give a bunch of TPs to anybody who can find me a statistic for Celtics free throw attempts at home versus on the road, and Celtics free throw attempts at home versus opponent free throw attempts at the Garden. 

I'd be very interested to see those numbers, because my subjective impression over the course of this season is there have been a lot of home games when the opponent has taken a lot more free throws than the C's.  The Celtics don't seem to get much respect at home, either from their opponents or the refs.

Great quote by KG. He was right to speak his mind because this was a ridiculous reffed game.

Also, I have had the same feeling that the C's got beaten at the FT line during almost every single home game this season, their opponent always takes a lot more FT's than them... hard to explain though, why would the refs treat us so badly at home?

[nickagneta]

Checking the league wide stats, the Celtics are one of the if not THE worst good team in a lot of differential free throw stats.

C's are 20th in the league in FTA differential with -1.1
C's are 17th in the league in FTM differential with -0.6

The splits for at home, on the road, in wins and in losses are equally bad. The only other playoff teams that consistently rank behind the Celtics in these stats are Milwaukee and Miami. The nearest team considered a contender in these rankings is Dallas and they are usually in the 10th-12th range.

[Drucci]

Checking the league wide stats, the Celtics are one of the if not THE worst good team in a lot of differential free throw stats.

C's are 20th in the league in FTA differential with -1.1
C's are 17th in the league in FTM differential with -0.6

The splits for at home, on the road, in wins and in losses are equally bad. The only other playoff teams that consistently rank behind the Celtics in these stats are Milwaukee and Miami. The nearest team considered a contender in these rankings is Dallas and they are usually in the 10th-12th range.

Thanks for the researches and the analysis Nick, pretty interesting informations.

I think we should take these stats with a grain of salt though, because the C's played a lot of games with their best "foul drawers" either absent or ineffective (like Pierce said, he played a lot of games without lift and we could see the results, poor shots and no FTA).

Yet it's mind-boggling to see them rank so badly in FT categories since they attack the rim a lot every game.

[bopna]

Checking the league wide stats, the Celtics are one of the if not THE worst good team in a lot of differential free throw stats.

C's are 20th in the league in FTA differential with -1.1
C's are 17th in the league in FTM differential with -0.6

The splits for at home, on the road, in wins and in losses are equally bad. The only other playoff teams that consistently rank behind the Celtics in these stats are Milwaukee and Miami. The nearest team considered a contender in these rankings is Dallas and they are usually in the 10th-12th range.

Hey Nick, How bout doin the Cavs Differential as well, we all know Lebrick is Stern's Poster boy so lets see how they stack up their FT differtial....My guess is I wouldn't be surprise at all why they have the best record in Stern's league..

[Bahku]

(paraphrasing)

"It was like we were playing Michael ____ Jordan out there tonight.  He took...I think he took [dang] near as many free throws as our whole team out there.  'Aint nothing you can do."

Yep.

As a poster who is often quick to point out things the Celtics did wrong, I want to come out right now and be clear: I watched the whole game tonight and I thought the Celtics played pretty well.  I couldn't single out one thing that I thought they really failed at.  They had a hard time containing Durant (shot 50% from the floor), but he hit a lot of tough shots.  You can't blame them for that.  Bottom line, the Celtics got owned at the free throw line, despite the fact that they scored more than half of their points in the paint.  You simply cannot win under those circumstances. 

I've made this offer before: I'll give a bunch of TPs to anybody who can find me a statistic for Celtics free throw attempts at home versus on the road, and Celtics free throw attempts at home versus opponent free throw attempts at the Garden. 

I'd be very interested to see those numbers, because my subjective impression over the course of this season is there have been a lot of home games when the opponent has taken a lot more free throws than the C's.  The Celtics don't seem to get much respect at home, either from their opponents or the refs.

If there was any one game that starkly proved this point this season, it was this one ... and there have been many! Really questionable stuff going on when it comes to officiating and the Celtics, and something must be done. There should be some kind of (relatively) objective group that oversees the NBA officials and makes changes/corrections/improvements when there are blatant instances of inbalance and incompetence like what happened in this game. They should be ashamed of this one ... horrible! (TP, Pos)

[Bahku]

Or ruined by homer announcers who present an obscenely one-sided homer view of every game.

Edit: Profanity

Billz401 - please read the posting rules thoroughly ... this is way over the line.

[Bahku]

http://scores.espn.go.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=300331005

Unbelievable. Cavs 45 FT's to Bucks 9. Are you kidding me NBA?

Wow ... this is amazing! Does the NBA even LOOK at stats like these?!? Shameful!

[housecall]

http://scores.espn.go.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=300331005

Unbelievable. Cavs 45 FT's to Bucks 9. Are you kidding me NBA?

And it still went to the wire...even with the refs help the Cavs barely won this one.TP

[nickagneta]

Checking the league wide stats, the Celtics are one of the if not THE worst good team in a lot of differential free throw stats.

C's are 20th in the league in FTA differential with -1.1
C's are 17th in the league in FTM differential with -0.6

The splits for at home, on the road, in wins and in losses are equally bad. The only other playoff teams that consistently rank behind the Celtics in these stats are Milwaukee and Miami. The nearest team considered a contender in these rankings is Dallas and they are usually in the 10th-12th range.

Hey Nick, How bout doin the Cavs Differential as well, we all know Lebrick is Stern's Poster boy so lets see how they stack up their FT differtial....My guess is I wouldn't be surprise at all why they have the best record in Stern's league..

Cleveland ranks 7th in the NBA in FTA per game(strangely the C's rank 11th but their differentials stink).

Cleveland ranks 5th in the NBA in FTA differential and is in 5th in FTA differential in most of the splits(in wins, in losses, at home, on the road) as well.

The teams that lead in FTA differential are, and are pretty consistently this way for all the splits:

1.) Charlotte
2.) Orlando
3.) Denver
4.) Memphis
5.) Cleveland
6.) Oklahoma City
7.) Portland
7.) Lakers
9.) Houston
10.) Atlanta

Seeing the top ten is kinda of strange because except of Memphis and Houston being in there and Boston not being in there, those are the best teams in the league.