He got away with it because there was no financial backlash for the NBA then. In the exact same circumstances, the response from the NBA League Office would be the same if the offending party were black, white, purple or polka dotted. This was a money issue above all else. If players weren't threatening to boycott playing and sponsors weren't lining up to bail, Sterling would have likely gotten away with it just as he had in the past. Now, I would expect you to argue that there would be less backlash from the public and players if he was black, and you may be right, but there's no way to know that definitively. Also, turns out that the gold-digger is from San Antonio's Southside.
And the Spurs dropped game 6 thanks to another brilliant effort by an ex-Spur. DeJuan Blair is a classic Popovich player and he played for Carlylse tonight the way he'd played for Pop on many another night. Looks like that home court advantage might just come in handy.
Winning Game 7 in San Antonio? No problem. Go Mavs! [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OmE3B-s8ow[/youtube]
Well Lax, you still have '06 :roll: That was vintage Tony Parker in the first half, not surprised the Spurs won, but didn't see it being a rout. West: The 8 teams were all really good and beat up on each other. The Spurs and OKC survived scares and will get past my Trail Blazers and the Clippers respectively. Highlight of the playoffs, Portland has a young star point guard and he put the dagger into Houston: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZrbEjppnd4 East: The Heat have to be laughing at the ease of their road to the Finals. Brooklyn had their number in the regular season, but this will go 5 or 6 games only. I'm not believing Indiana has found themselves despite coming back against the comically bad Hawks, will take the young upstarts from Washington to reach the conference finals.
The Mavs ran out of gas today. A decent season and Rick Carlisle is a genius to win 49 games in the West and take the Spurs to seven games when you look at that roster (nine new players this season and three guys 35+ years old who get regular minutes). I am going to be 50 and have nightmares of Tony Parker driving to the hoop after seeing this for 10+ years.
suffer, baby :banana-guitar: :banana-guitar: Actually, all the props for Carlilse and DeJuan Blair, I'm just glad that Mark Cuban is taking his raggedy ass out of the NBA spotlight.
Back-to-back horrible calls deprived the Clips of a win last night. First a possession call goes the wrong way -- after a review showed clearly it was the Clippers' ball -- then a phantom foul call on a 3-pointer gave the game to the Thunder by a point. This turns the conspiracy theorists on their heads, of course, since a small market team benefitted over the largest market still in the tournament. What a ripoff.
According to the NBA, because Barnes hit Jackson's hand and that resulted in the ball going out of bounds, the Thunder retained possession. Doesn't matter that Jackson's hand was the last one on the ball. Would have been cleaner if they'd just called it as the foul that it was. But the end result is the same. Paul did foul him on the 3. You can point fingers at the refs if you prefer but it's just masking the incredibly stupid basketball dominating the NBA today. Barkley and Kenny Smith went off on it last night and it was hilarious. Outside of the Heat and Spurs, the complete disregard for fundamentals is shocking.
Doc Rivers' post-game discussion is brilliant. Banging the table and the use of "crap" is solid coach post-game material. And after my son's favorite team fired a good coach, they still don't have one - Warriors shouldn't have fired Mark Jackson plain and simple.
Conspiracy theorists view it as the NBA wanting the League MVP Durant going head to head w/LeBron in the Finals. :shock: The Clips might have LA in front of their name, but when it comes to the divide amongst the local teams this is a 97% Lakers v 3% Clippers town. No lie, until the Sterling fiasco broke out all the talk on sports radio was about how the Lakers are going to go about rebuilding and zero about the Clippers actually in the playoffs. The first call was terrible. Especially since the only job of the replay was to determine who touched the ball last. Applying the rule where if the defender hitting the hand means the ball goes to the offensive team wasn't supposed to be reviewable. The fact the refs instead went with 'inconclusive" is a total crock and blatant lie. Will disagree w/you HD on the second call. It was a terrible shot selection by Westbrook, but Chris Paul does that little trick where he gets under the shooter and touches the elbow. It rarely gets called, but he fouled him.
And I'll say this as someone who likes the Clippers, but the bad and/or questionable calls shouldn't have mattered. I know it's hard to be critical of CP3, because he's so consistently good, but he made a big mental error not just taking the foul and riding this thing out at the free throw line. As a team nursing a lead in the last minute, the team's play was way too frenetic (turnovers, ill-advised shots). Hunker down, take the fouls and see this thing out.
Fair point. I don't get that aspect of replay. The idea behind the tool is to go back and get the call right. Why put restrictions over what is or isn't reviewable on that? I understand it in the greater context of not wanting to replay every call, but on a given call of that importance, it's silly. Just get it right or else why bother?
So, the NBA fines Doc Rivers $25K for basically saying what every other cogent person in the US saw as a blown call. The hubris of the NBA knows no bounds. Think that Doc had a little steam built up that he needed to blow off? And yet, it wasn't an outrageous tirade - a very professional tirade if anything.
touche, and he said "crap" a couple of times - i'd have personally gone with "horseshit" but that's just me
NBA playoffs are as predictable as the NHL's are not. You will get a surprise or two in the opening round, but the cream generally rises to the top as both the West and Eastern conference top seeds all have advanced. For both Portland and Washington a lesson on what level it takes to play deep into May/June was given, hopefully both teams will take the next step. East: Can Indiana and more importantly Roy Hibbert rise to the challenge? In December I would of said yes, but they've been poor at home in the playoffs and have had some inexplicable performances to think they can beat Miami 4 times. Heat in 5 or 6 West: Devastating injury to Serge Ibaka has really hurt the Thunder's chances of reaching the Finals. However, what is the status of Tony Parker's hammy? This one is too close to call and will probably come down to a play or two.
The word is good on Tony's hammy, but if the rumor you spoke of earlier is valid, the NBA's GodCommish will somehow get the "clash of the MVPs" that he wants.
