KG fined $25 000 for criticizing the refs

[guava_wrench]

He should be fined that money from the team for being whiny, rather than just stepping up and you know, defending Green on those 3's.  

I know the refs suck.  But this is nothing new.  But the refs did not lose the C's that game, their lack of defense did.

(disclaimer: I am not really saying it was KG's fault, just saying that the team in general needs to play a lot better defense before they have a right to complain at the refs in a game like that)

I don't understand statements like these. Is there ever an instance where Ref's lose a game for a team? You can always point out 1000 instances in a game where players could have done something better. You can always say if the celtics hit more shots, or played better defense, or didn't commit that foul, or if the Doc put in X player that they  would have won. You are talking about 2 threes by Jeff Green at the End of the game. What about the other 100 whatever points they scored? There were probably so many instances where we could have played better defense but teams make shots. What if KG had been convering him and he hit those in KG's face? Would that have made the game ok or would we be pointing about the defense somewhere else?

I think part of the reason they are complaining about the ref's is that the ref's weren't letting them play defense, not an unwillingness on our part.

People have said that we needed to play better defense in this game but how could they? When they played defense they were whistled for ridiculous fouls. Yeah they commit some fouls if they are late on rotations (which apparently we were never late on a couple years ago) but the reason the thunder shot 50 percent was because A: KD was on fire and B: whenever we attempted to we were whistled with touch fouls sending a good team to the line. Once that started happenning we had to lay off them a little bit or they would have shot 70 free throws and we would have fouled out. So instead they got more uncontested shots resulting in higher percentage shots.

Though we never actually know how a game will play out if we change a play that occurred earlier, enough significant bad calls obviously can affect an outcome. It is questionable to ever blame a single play for the outcome of a game, unless the single play was breaking Lebron's leg or ejecting him from the game (thus the reviews of such plays). Yet it is also absurd to say individual plays don't affect the outcome.

We also can never know whether changing bad calls would have affected the other teams shooting percentage.

In the end, the benefits/losses from human error among the refs balance out over a season if you control for veteran savvy, such as players who are good at flailing or flopping to make it look like they got pushed (I miss that from Posey and was happy when Rip started getting called for his rather savvy moves while using picks).

[Finkelskyhook]

Solid post, Guava.

During the Bird era, the last of eras where officials were allowed to officiate by the rulebook, there were plenty of human errors.  We didn't need reviews or any of the NFL stuff because it was strictly human error.  Then there was Jordan and the rulebook got thrown out the window for him altogether.  The messiah is even more absurdly and overtly coddled than Jordan ever was.  Bryant, Pierce, Nash, Wade, etc get the Jordan treatment.

When a single player is officiated (well, sort of) by one set of rules, a group of stars are governed by another standard, and the rest of the group is officiated by the rulebook, there is plenty of opportunity for the fan to believe that games are fixed....Or at least appear to be fixed.

With the exception of the 72 olympics, I don't recall in my lifetime before Jordan's superstardom where anybody questioned whether a game could have been fixed.  I've watched probably 30 games at the college and pro level that left me wondering in this season alone.

Garnett and Wallace are among many who bring it to light.  But it really doesn't matter until it's addressed in earnest.

The sad part is that players like the messiah, Bryant, etc could be even better than they are if they weren't bailed out all the time.  The fan is missing out on their maximum potential.  The stars would be more dominant if everybody was officiated the same.  As a rule, they work harder at their craft.