No D In Denver

to be fair, they tried the hard nosed defense they usally play in the first quarter….to the tune of a 17-2 FT advantage for denver, and 2 guys in foul trouble.

I mean, at some point, you have to go “so thats how its going to be called huh?” as the celtics and play “dont pick up a phantom foul” defense, which they clearly played for the 2nd and third.

Then they tried to turn it back on in the 4th, and almost got there, but several horrid calls on the definsive end (garnetts goal tend below the rim, the blocking fouls on pierce and posey to bail melo out) sunk them again.

The officating was horrable for the nuggetts to, but they want to play a foul heavy game, it limits defence as guys get in foul trouble, which they don’t play anyway.

As for KG, he looked about as i expected, real rusty early, was clearly getting it back late when he went on his blocking spree with the put back dunk. i predict one more warm up game by doc tonight, then turn him loose.

i agree it was not a fun game to watch and the refs were really bad. there have been several games with poor officiating. the league is in big trouble when their yahoo refs who really do control the game are ineffective. it impugns the integrity of the game and i hope stern is on this. frankly i am tired of stern and he has become too fat a cat . all that being said. the celtic who showed his worth last night was paul. he was not respected by the refs; neither was rondo. tony also looked good. denver is not as good as the refs made them be.

The officiating this year is the worst it’s ever been. My favorite sequence last night was Carmelo pushing off Tony Allen and then charging Leon with Leon getting called for blocking. I can’t believe I stayed up to watch that. It was brutal. I’m with nazzbo, something needs to be done about the refs. add another one or do something… anything… please!

worst part about that leon charge is the ref under the basket had the right call, and benny the moron ran over and called a block.

i didnt see the game, but am super curious from seeing that Denver took 49 ft
in this one game. Was the game fairly called?

Perk,
No it was not fairly called. there were terrible calls both ways but the nuggets definately got the better of the calls overall. Once Camby, K-mart & Melo got their 5th fouls they somehow all played perfect defense the rest of the game (almost all of the 4th). PP was driving like a mad man and could not pick up a foul for the life of him, mean while melo was acting like a bull in a china shop and living at the FT line. Melo is an offensive foul everytime he drives. He throws out is off arm right into the chest of his defender and pushes them back. There easily could have been 4-5 more offensive fouls on him alone, but i think the refs felt bad after they called 2-3 on him during the throughout the game and then proceeded so ‘swallow their whistle’.

The officiating was awful. Welcome to the NBA, where a well-officiated games are about as frequent as diamonds in a sewage treatment plant.

There were bad calls both ways, although it seemed to me that the Nuggets got away with alot more grabbing and reach-in fouls.

The thing that bothered me was the disparity in free throw attempts. NBA officials are the worst among the big 3 sports in
my opinion. But it speaks well that the team could hang around in a game where KG was rusty and the calls didn’t go the Cs way and it took the Nuggets to the end of the game to put the game away. I guess the only consolation is that in the playoffs the
better officials get more of the games.

The NBA caters to its stars-especially when those stars are playing at home. Considering we are a team with three mega-stars, and will likely have home court adv. for as long as we last in the playoffs, I think this is to our advantage.

With that being said, this is a totally flawed method of officiating the NBA has. I now find myself dead tired at work, because not only did I stay up to watch the game, I sat awake in bed infuriated by the ineptitude that the officials showed (that charge call being the worst, in my opinion).

However, having cooled off, there are some positives. Rondo, and his putback dunk especially. Paul Pierce, I love how he has played all season. KG is back, albeit he looked tentative, but he’ll be fine. The late run to make it close. That was the stuff of a team with true spirit and heart.

The game was frustrating, but in hindsight, there are positives, I suppose.

yea, melo smartly figured out (this is not a knock on him, you play within how the game is called) that thier was simply no chance of him getting his 6th fould called on him for a charge, so he ran over powe and pierce 3 times in the final 5 minutes for blocking fouls.

smart move, take what the ref’s give you.

I am not sure that if I was one of the celtics last night I could have restrained a comment about being on the take! I am sure they have all been warned though that it is an automatic ejection. It sure appeared like they were favoring the Thuggets.

In all fairness, this is I think the hardest of all of the big 3 sports to referee though. They are all so fast and strong that it has to be hard to get things right. It has definitely gone downhill though in the past 5-10 years.

On a positive note, they were given the raw end of the foul calls last night, KG was clearly not himself yet, they were in Denver, and they still almost pulled it out. Those are the kind of losses that don’t hurt too bad.

I was at this game, and yes, it was painful. Defense was just non-existent. I thought the C’s would come out in the 2nd half and pick up the defensive pace, but nope. I am not going to lie, being there you hardly noticed the disparity inf fouls called. It “seemed” fair.
One thing left out of this thread is how well Rondo played. The kid is so damn fast.
Also, one last thing. Guys, we are turning into the MOST hated team in BB because of 2 things- our other teams (Pats & Sox) winning ways, and bandwagon fans having zero class. There were a lot of Celtics fans in the Pepsi Center last night, far more than last year when I was there, and more than there were at the Delta in SLC the 3 years before that. Suddenly, everyone who even lived one semester in college near Boston is a Celts fan, and don’t know how to act in public.
PLEASE, for the love of god, if you live outside Boston and get the priviledge to get to a C’s game, act with some class and some respect. In other words, act like we’ve been there before.
Thanks

about turning into the most hated fans- as a sox and pats fan as well, ive come to realize something.

i dont care. hate all you want, it doesn’t affect my view of the team one iota.

Its true the Celtics got screwed last night at the Free Throw line and that the refs help the Nuggets get the win.

Not really. At first I thought so, but someone pointed out an important point to me: Denver took 12 FTs in the final 42 seconds, all on intentional fouls. So the FT discrepancy is greatly overstated.

crownsy originally made the point- the c’s were playing tough d in the first few mins and every touch or breath was being called. after that they were doomed to a run and gun or smash and run. what really offended me was ai constantly going to the line with his crybaby act and rondo getting punished for playing good defense. that and the maul paul scenario.and noone has remarked on the disappearance of ray for 3 quarters. i am a great supporter of him, but he really stank.

no one commented on Ray because it was par for the course so far this season

This was the worst officiated game I’ve seen since the C’s/Pacers game the game after Jermaine O’Neal beat the NBA in court and got off his suspension early. The difference in the game is that Denver has two players who get the phantom, imaginary, and non-calls and we have one. The charging calls Paul got were obscene. Some of the fouls called that sent Paul to the free throw line were equally obscene. The imaginary calls the thugster got were beyond comprehension. Especially that last whistle that came 3 seconds after the thugster did a perfect imitation of Ric Flair flopping to foul Rondo out. Anthony was comical in the calls he was getting. It’d be nice if the officials actually applied the rulebook to everyone….And called technicals for the incessent flopping. (Paul??) The ridiculous officiating made what should have been a great game to watch very tedious and maddening.

I heard today on Mike and Mike that Rivers told Chris Broussard that he (Rivers) wasn’t surprised at all that Powe would fill in so well when Garnett went down. That Powe reminded Rivers of Charles Oakley.

That, I guess, would explain all of Powe’s DNPs by Rivers??

Plowboy, I agree with everything said except the last piece. Why can’t Powe remind him of Oakley, but he stil feel that he wasn’t quite ready. Once he got in by necessity, he has shown that he can produce out there, and has been averaging 20 min per game. Why is that an issue?! Perk was the one getting those minutes all year and he earned them. With KG out they had to play smaller. That pulled Perk out of the game more and Powe contributed.

PLAYA, Scal went 5 weeks without getting a rebound, for petes’ sake. How did he earn the minutes as opposed to Powe? Intangibles? I see the comparison to Oakley. (I wish Powe was 6-9 like Oakley)

It seems a bit hypocritical and (as is typical with Rivers) ridiculously disengenuous to come up with that after giving Powe nothing but DNPs and garbage minutes prior to the injury. ;D…Sorta like Fonzie saying “I knew that”.

Rivers did a good job of keeping in combinations that kept his team in the game last night even though it appeared that they were outplayed the whole game.

He just needs to learn when to keep his mouth shut.