Are Playoff Games Manipulated?

[Frank Breakfast Styleham]

How many'you really Really REALLY believe IN YOUR HEART OF HEARTS that David Stern has ordered referees to favor calls for the Celtics and the Lakers to get them into the finals so the finals ratings will be large?

The Lakers won the title fair and square in 2001 but I saw those games and I remember those games and TO THIS DAY i am telling you - the 2000 and the 2002 NBA Championship was just GIVEN to the Lakers.

Rick Fox flat-out shoves a King out of bounds and it's Lakers ball?

Shaq clearly fouls someone and should have fouled out on it but somehow the foul is called on Robert Horry who didn't even make CONTACT and wasn't anywhere NEAR them!?

Steve Smith drives to the lane and is fouled head on and nothing is called and then the Lakers get the ball and win it at the buzzer?

Heck, I hate to say this but Michael Jordan PUSHES OFF on Bryan Russell and knocks him down and hits the game-winner.

THAT'S AN OFFENSIVE FOUL.

I'm a die-hard Bulls fan...i love Michael Jordan but that still doesn't make it NOT an offensive foul. That play was an offensive foul!

To those who disagree, if that's Bryan Russell and Jordan is the one guarding him and Russell does that same move would that have been a foul? You better believe it.

But since it's a big-time market and the other team is a small market, the calls have been known to go that way.

I'm not trying to take anything away from the Bulls because unlike the Lakers last "dynasty" the Bulls were a team that came to play every night unlike the Fakers.

But I'm just saying......!!

 

[ZombieKevie]

i agree with you, and id say more about it if my brain wasnt fried.

 

[TheStig]

I doubt the nba fixes games, something would have come out by now. The refs don't make millions and I am sure someone would have sold the story by now.

 

[Shakes]

Exactly. The problem with most conspiracy theories is there's too much money to be made by blowing the whistle and selling your story. Unless you think Stern has men in black helicopters to go around to the houses of those in the know and silence them.

 

[senrad]

I work as a ref and have worked with many NBA refs. I don't think the games could be manipulated; but I didn't think the scandal from a few years back would be possible either. The guys that I know seem to be high character guys who wouldn't think of doing anything to disrespect the game.

I don't see the reward behind the NBA itself fixing the games. They may schedule certain refs for certain situations (joey crawford being on the floor the game after rondo punched miller for example) but assignors do that at every level of basketball. Steering the teams from bigger markets into later rounds of the playoffs would result in higher tv ratings but the potential for it blowing up in their faces make the risk not worth the reward IMO.

 

[dougthonus]

I agree, I think there's no way the refs are fixing games, someone would have just blown the whistle if it was happening.

Also, there are bad calls in every game, and I think you're crazy if you think they'd ever call that push on Jordan even if it went the other way. Do you remember Reggie Miller's push off on Jordan in game 6 of the ECF or maybe it was the ECSF where Miller hit a last second three to win the game? It was basically 100x the push that Jordan gave Russell (who was just falling backwards already), and they didn't whistle it.

I think it's possible that Donaghy as a lone wolf fixed some games.

 

[pyobuttah]

I think to an extent it is prolonged. There have been way too many examples over the years and I could attach an article my buddy did covering a few instances. Just this year, to watch Rondo not get thrown out in game 6 was worst than Haslem on Pachulia, than Howard on Dalembert, etc. The league then makes the decisions which I think have to do with pro-longing the series (howard on Orlando), not suspending Rondo which was clearly worst, suspending Haslem, etc....

Last year, the Lakers were beneficiarry in the first series against the Jazz in terms of foul treatment, along with the Celts gainst the Hawks, and KG bumping the ref in game 6 against Hawks, but no suspension. How about the Kings/Lakers, Lakers/JailBlazers? How bout Spurs/Suns? How bout Spurs/Lakers? How bout Playoff home/away free throw splits.

Do I think it is a full-fledge thing? No, but I do think Stern orders favorable calls, and if there comes a decision on suspending players or allowing it's more about ratings then basketball (I think that is clearly rigged)!

I wish we had some other commissioner

 

[theCHI_Life84]

i dont know why people think jordan knocked over russel. in slo-mo, its obvious that the push off did NOT cause the guy to fall, he slipped when he tried to recover. there was very minimal pressure on russel and i dont really recall ANYONE complaining about it, from either team.

and to add to it, mj was getting hand-checked the entire way. imo its a clean play through and through

 

[Frank Breakfast Styleham]

The night I saw that play I knew that if Jordan had the ball the Bulls would score and take the league and that it would probably be the game-winner.

When I saw Jordan hit that shot, as a Bulls fan I was on cloud nine.

Yet at the same time i had a guilty conscience. Because when I saw Jordan PUSH OFF on Russell, knocking him down on the floor (that's what it was - i don't think there's any point in trying to justify it or pretending it was anything other than what it was just because it was Michael Jordan), as much as I loved the fact that the Bulls were up and would go on to win the title that night, like I said, I had a guilty conscience because that SHOULD have been an offensive foul, Jazz ball.

Once again, if the Jazz have the ball and Bryan Russell does EXACTLY what Jordan did to him and Jordan falls down, at that time of the game, 100 times out of 10 that is an offensive foul, Bulls ball.

But just because it's Michael Jordan with the ball, for some reason the referees have to swallow the whistle and pretend like that wasn't just an offensive foul.

I have never understood that rule.

"Well normally, a foul is a foul but when it's a superstar or when the game is on the line and we're dealing with a big-market team, let's stretch the rules a little bit and call the game in their favor."

How is that fair for both teams?

If I were a referee I don't care who you are.

I wouldn't care if you're Michael Jordan or Derrick Gervin - the rules apply to everyone. I wouldn't care if you're the Chicago Bulls dynasty playing their last few seconds together or if you're the '91 Dallas Mavericks.

A foul is a foul. A travel is a travel (LeBron James!). If you elbow someone in the head you're getting tossed and will be suspended. Etc.

People can try to sugarcoat and justify it all they want but at the end of the day, Michael Jordan STILL fouled Bryan Russell before hitting that shot.

If Bryan Russell did the same exact thing to Jordan there's only one thing that would have happened.

They would have emphatically called an offensive foul and it would have been Bulls ball.

There are different rules for different players and it will never be fair.

 

[Shakes]

If there's inconsistent calls between games it's because the refs are human not robots. They'll have good days and bad days just like the players. Not to mention that different refs will be at different games. You don't expect a Spurs/Pistons game to be played the same style as a Warriors/Suns game, they have different players. Why would you expect the refs to all have the same tendencies and call every game identically?

As far as "superstar calls" or whatever, again the refs are human. They're influenced by the reputations of players. I know they shouldn't be, and I assume they try not to be, but you're never going to get someone who is able to ignore the fact that it's LeBron driving to the hoop and not Lindsey Hunter. You know LeBron is a great player, you know he can score lots of points, so when he fails to score, it's the natural that the ref is thinking "why did he miss that shot, was he fouled, better check for fouls".

You can influence that kind of thing too, I know here in the Australian football league where basically anyone associated with a club, coaches/players/administrators can be fined for so much as mentioning umpires, they'll sometimes deliberately do it anyway and cop the fine because they know it's ten grand well spent if it makes the umpires self conscious of calling the game a certain way.

I don't think there's any deep conspiracy at work, just the refs are capable of making bad decisions like the players. I do find it somewhat ironic that in a sport where even the best players miss half the shots they take, we focus on guys who blow a tiny fraction of their calls. We don't expect anything close to perfection from the players, but the refs make one mistake and they're corrupt?

 

[clonetrooper264]

I've seen that MJ play thousands of times. Honestly, if he pushed off, it made little difference because Russell was falling down anyway. Jordan "broke his ankles" with that crossover. Russell also kinda tripped off Jordan's leg.

 

[Frank Breakfast Styleham]

haha yeah - again if the roles were reversed and Russell had the ball and the same play happened, people would be saying it was a FLAGRANT 2 just because Jordan went down.

On another note, from the Associated Press this morning:

"The NBA also announced that it assessed Lakers guard Kobe Bryant a flagrant 1 foul for elbowing Rockets forward Ron Artest in the chest in the fourth quarter of Game 2. Bryant was not called for a foul at the time, though Artest was ejected for confronting Bryant after the incident."

We'll suspend Rafer Alston and Derek Fisher and even Dwight Howard (still not the name Kobe is) but not Kobe Bryant! We can't afford to lose ratings and all the non-traditional NBA fans who only want to watch Kobe play.

Kobe elbows Ron Artest and nothing is called until a day or so after the game. But Ron Artest is tossed that day and he's the one who was hit!?

It's an exhausted argument and I know it is but it works.

If that was almost ANYBODY ELSE, would they have been given a flagrant during the game? Would they have been ejected and suspended?

Artest got hit by Kobe and it's Artest who is ejected with NO PENALTY (during the game) for Kobe?

Are you kidding me?

I'm not saying refs aren't allowed to make mistakes - everyone makes mistakes every day. What I'm talking about is how CONVENIENT it can be to use that excuse while there are undisputably different rules at times for different players.

"But Frank, they gave Kobe a flagrant one."

OOO!!!! A flagrant one! That's so severe! This just put the series in jeopardy! They may as well just forfeit the rest of the series because Kobe got slapped with a whole flagrant one.

If a guy like Carl Landry elbowed Kobe in the same way Kobe elbowed Artest he PROBABLY would have been immediately tossed and suspended for the next game.

But since his name is Kobe Bryant and he brings the viewers in, we have to look the other way and suspend the rest of the guys for less stuff sometimes.

Makes me sick.