Fouls vs. Heat: We are all blind, apparently

by Shums on Dec 4, 2008 2:28 PM MST

Last night's game thread contained some pointed (and pointless) bitchery about the way Dwyane Wade gets the benefit of calls whenever he enters a 10-foot radius around the basket, and the general manner in which the Heat seemed to manhandle the Jazz on defense, especially Mario Chalmers harrassing a still-gimpy D-Will into six turnovers.

Ira Winderman of the Miami Sun-Sentinel says we are wrong:

I have never seen a team so physically blitz the pick-and-roll as what the Jazz got away with Wednesday night against Mario Chalmers. If the officials continue to hold their whistles, Chalmers could be in for a nightly bruising. It was tackle basketball.

Hmm. Chalmers had one personal foul last night. Deron Williams had three. (Maybe that means D-Will was indeed being more physical, but it also means he was being called for it. No way did Mario only foul D-Will ONCE last night.) Chalmers shot five free throws to Deron's four. Oh, and Chalmers got the benefit of two boneheaded fouls from Memo, 30 feet away from the basket, late in the game.

Meanwhile, if you want to talk tackle basketball and nightly bruisings, I give you Exhibit A:

via deseretnews.com

Finally, let me remind the Heat: YOU HAVE DWYANE WADE. The man who single-handedly stole the 2006 Finals away from the Mavericks with bogus free throws.

While I'm as guilty of it as anyone, I hate whining about the refs, and I'll not blame last night's loss on them. But when the winning team whines first... well, that's uncool.

All comments are the opinion of the commenter and not necessarily that of SLC Dunk or SB Nation.

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to sum it up:

everyone thinks nba officiating sucks, regardless of outcome.

but yes, it’s real uncool for a winning team to complain. how do they think we feel?

by moni on Dec 4, 2008 4:36 PM MST reply actions

Chalmers

I only watched the fourth quarter, but I think what the Miami poster might have been talking about it the play where Millisap switched on Chalmers on a pick and roll. He bumped him several times and eventually they called a travelling him, but he was obviously upset and wanted a foul called on Millisap.

by mathewsn on Dec 4, 2008 5:05 PM MST reply actions

I thought they did call a foul on Millsap on that play

maybe I saw it wrong, I was working at the time. Or maybe I’m thinking of a different play.

I don’t doubt there were isolated incidents on both sides where the call was missed. And I don’t doubt there were times when Chalmers did get fouled with no call. But Winderman made it sound like poor little Mario was getting manhandled every time down the court, when I’m pretty sure he gave at least as good as he got.

"SHOCK THE WORLD!! AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!"

by Shums on Dec 4, 2008 5:15 PM MST up reply actions

Probably talking about the one

Where super mario got called for the travel. Chalmers was pushing off the whole way.

SLCDunk.com, The Utah Jazz on SBNation

by Basketball John on Dec 4, 2008 8:09 PM MST up reply actions

I think that this article exposes a bigger problem about people who write about the NBA.

There are so many NBA teams and I can’t fault the everyday sports writer for not really being knowledgable about every team, but because most sports writers only have a pedestrian knowledge of every team that isn’t the squad they love or cover, most NBA teams have become stereotypes. That is why a person can make a comment about the Jazz being overly physical, or being boring and having a plodding offense and anyone who doesn’t follow the Jazz will read it and say, “yeah, that’s true about the Jazz” even if they haven’t seen the Jazz play more than 4 times over 3 seasons. So Ira Winderman has either bought into the fact that the Jazz are an overly physical team, or else he knows that most people will read that line and believe it to be true, because hey, this is the Jazz team we are talking about.

My advice, is that you should only believe people who can back up their statements. Or else people who get paid to cover the NBA entirely and they try to cover all of the teams. It is true statistically that the Jazz foul a lot. But it isn’t because they are an overly physical team. Anyone who watches the Jazz know that they play tough, but they foul a lot because they don’t have great interior defense, so they end up sending people to the line instead of letting them have an easy bucket.

The more you try to erase me, the more that I appear.

by clarkpojo on Dec 5, 2008 8:27 AM MST reply actions