Way better officiating over the last two games.

[nickagneta]

After all the whining and complaining that went on here at Celticsblog during the Cleveland series, much of it well deserved, and during a game or three of this series, I thought it should be mentioned that over the last two games, the officiating has been pretty darn good.

When all you talk about is the play of the players in a game, then you know that the refs did their job. And in Monday night's and last night's game, that's exactly what was happening.

Now sure, there was the very occasional bad call. There always will be because with the speed of the game taken to the level it has over the years, the human element of being able to see what happened and instantly digest it and react is now extremely difficult because of the quality of the modern athlete.

But over the last two games, I've been very impressed with the referees allowing the boys to play and decide the outcome of the game on their own. The ticky tack fouls have been kept to a minimum. They've allowed the hard fouls on drives to the basket. They've controlled the game to the point where no bad blood is building up between the teams. And they haven't, for the most part over the last two games, gone for the acted out crap that stars like LeBron and Pierce pull all the time.

Again, they are guilty of falling for some of the acting and just plain missing a call here or there and some bad calls, but the increase in quality of officiating over the last two games is astounding. I thought for sure that we were going to see the crappy officiating that we've been seeing for most of the year and through the first 10 games of the postseason forever.

Here's hoping that Stern is actually aware of this and rewards these crews with more playoff games. But knowing Stern, he'll more than likely be sitting the crews of the last two games for a good long while.

Now I know there will be a bunch of you tht will point out all the bad calls that have been made from games 4 and 5 and I'm guessing most if not all of them will have been in Cleveland's favor, but the bad calls went both ways and were not decidedly going just one way. For every call that was anti-Celtic, I'm sure our esteemed expert on Cavs basketball will be able to point to a call that was anti-Cleveland.

And that's when you know that the refs did their jobs, when both sides can complain about what happened. Anyways let hope we see more stuff like this all the way through til the end of the season. We as fans couldn't ask for anything more than a fairly officiated game.

[Brickowski]

The officiating has been surprisingly good throughout the Boston-Cleveland series.  I can't understand it.

[Mean Gerald Green]

The Cavs still took almost double the amount of free throws the Celtics did, 41 for the Cavs, 23 for the Celtics. Not to mention that the Celtics picked up at least 7 of those free throws late in the 4th quarter when Pierce was being fouled purposely.

I'm not complaining because we won, but luckily the differential (especially in the first half, when Cleveland could have gained a ton of momentum) didn't cost us.

[nickagneta]

You can't fault the refs for a disparity in the free throws attempted when one team is consistently going to the basket like Cleveland and another is doing everything they can to get an open look for an outside shot.

It's just a plain fact that teams that take it to the hole will get a lot of fouls drawn their way. Boston is not that type of team.

[FreeGreen]

I respectfully disagree with the original poster.

This is another game where the Celtics had a significant advantage of shots in the paint / going to the basket and yet were at a huge free throw discrepancy.  Take away the 6 FT Paul got at the end of the game when the Cavs HAD to foul and you have a 41 to 17 FT difference.  That's about a 20 point gap (if you figure a team hits about 75%) the Celtics had to make up.  In low scoring games like we have seen in this series that's a huge advantage for Cleveland.

In last night's Game 5, the Cavs scored 26 points in the 4th quarter on 6!! baskets and none of them were three point baskets.

I'm not really sure what it the underlying cause is.

In the Atlanta series everyone said that Atlanta didn't play the physical defensive style that Boston did.  Well that excuse doesn't hold up for this series, as Cleveland plays extremely physical on both ends of the floor.

I will say that the refs have been better about falling for Lebron's histronics ... another great one last night where he stayed down on the ground under the basket holding his face while the C's raced up the other end of the floor, TNT never shows replays, but we rewound it on Tivo and watched it about 10 times in slowmo, he never got touched, the ref saw he never got touched and didn't bite for his acting job, but he still tried to sell it by holding his face and collapsing in a heap.

[Section 87]

I noticed that Paul drew a charge on a nice flop, although he had not established position. To many Celtics fans, that counts as "better officiating." 

[Tommy Gun]

Yeah I still say they are missing some push in the backs on the Cavs on the rebounding action especially Ziggy and Side Show Bob..That and every blocked shot by the Cavs is clean c'mon...A lot of banging in the post especially on Garnett goes uncalled.

I nearly had a cow when a out of controll Delonte West barrelled into Pierce for block call with about 20 seconds to go..You don't make that call..

The Cavs get away with a lot of fouls clogging the lane up in general

[Redz]

I nearly had a cow when a out of controll Delonte West barrelled into Pierce for block call with about 20 seconds to go..You don't make that call..

In all fairness Pierce was bailed out on a similar play earlier in the 4th where he was totally out of control, and headed out of bounds falling over after a spin move went awry.

[Weird Facts]

I nearly had a cow when a out of controll Delonte West barrelled into Pierce for block call with about 20 seconds to go..You don't make that call..

In all fairness Pierce was bailed out on a similar play earlier in the 4th where he was totally out of control, and headed out of bounds falling over after a spin move went awry.

True Red.

 Again Pierce may have been horribly out of control, but the defender had both feet in the restricted area.  I'm not sure what the official ruling on that is supposed to be.

From my understanding if you are in the restricted area you cannot take a charge. 

But I guess if someone just lowers their shoulder and goes its a judgment call.

[nickagneta]

I never said the refereeing was perfect. Just a ton better. As for the FT discrepency I looked at the shot chart for last nights game and then the play by play.

Out of the 7 Celtic shots, 38 were outside of the key. Of the remaining shots 5 were Rondo's driving floater's where he takes the shot before contact can get to him and 8 shots were off of offensive rebounds. So discounting Rondo's 5 shots where he looks for no contact and the 8 shots off of offensive rebounds, that only 26 of the Celtics 77 shots were shots off of a play where a shot was made in the paint looking for contact. To me that is not the definition of a team looking to drive the lane to make contact.

Also, for every contact under the basket by a Cav in the rebounding area, Boston had just as many. Boston is an extremely agressive defensive team, especially outside, and makes tons of contact because they contest just about every shot. That's going to result in lots of fouls and lots of FTs for the opponent

The refs let them play on the rebounds and they really only called the most egregious of the fouls on rebounds. That's what I like. Let the players decide the game, not the refs.

[Bankshot]

I disagree with the OP too.  I thought the Cavs got to the line every time they got near the paint, while the C's didn't get that many calls when they attacked the paint and were called for some phantom fouls, like Cassell falling down and getting a foul called on him and Delonte running over Rondo and getting a blocking call.

[tradewinds9]

I can live with the refereeing in the last two games. There has been one official  in particular, an older man I think his name was Salvatore???, and in three games he has completely changed the complexion of the games, making the Celtics play soft while allowing the opponents to play hard, calling marginal fouls on the Celtics and ignoring fouls against them until the flow of the game in the opponents favor is completely overwhelming; then he make enough after the fact calls to save face.....bullEdited.  Profanity and masked profanity are against forum rules and may result in discipline. and I can't believe he's not corrected by the league or head of officials over a three game span.

[angryguy77]

I respectfully disagree with the original poster.

This is another game where the Celtics had a significant advantage of shots in the paint / going to the basket and yet were at a huge free throw discrepancy.  Take away the 6 FT Paul got at the end of the game when the Cavs HAD to foul and you have a 41 to 17 FT difference.  That's about a 20 point gap (if you figure a team hits about 75%) the Celtics had to make up.  In low scoring games like we have seen in this series that's a huge advantage for Cleveland.

In last night's Game 5, the Cavs scored 26 points in the 4th quarter on 6!! baskets and none of them were three point baskets.

I'm not really sure what it the underlying cause is.

In the Atlanta series everyone said that Atlanta didn't play the physical defensive style that Boston did.  Well that excuse doesn't hold up for this series, as Cleveland plays extremely physical on both ends of the floor.

I will say that the refs have been better about falling for Lebron's histronics ... another great one last night where he stayed down on the ground under the basket holding his face while the C's raced up the other end of the floor, TNT never shows replays, but we rewound it on Tivo and watched it about 10 times in slowmo, he never got touched, the ref saw he never got touched and didn't bite for his acting job, but he still tried to sell it by holding his face and collapsing in a heap.

That is one thing that I cannot stand about him. Every freakn time he gets wrapped up he's holding face and checking his lip. It's really starting to annoye me. Just play the game and hike up the skirt.

[nickagneta]

So Boston didn't get any calls.

What about the acting job by Pierce to get the offensive foul on LeBron when Pierce clearly didn't have the position established?

What about Pierce's out of control drive that was clearly an offensive foul but instead resulted in two Pierce FTs?

What about on at least three occasions where KG was moving and leaning in on the high pick and roll he was running with Rondo?

What about the non call on KG against Delonte when West was going in for a layup and just as he started his jump Rondo blocked the shot from behind and then KG knocked Delonte into the first row?

There were others. Calls did go both ways.

[liam]

What about hands in KG's back EVERY TIME down the court, but never called?