| 24 May 2009
Going into this... [Whistle] game, you couldn't have had two teams play... [Whistle] each other any closer than... [Whistle] the Magic and Cavaliers. In Game One, the Cavs... [Whistle] were a successful final possession... [Whistle] away from taking the contest and in Game Two, the Cavs were... [Whistle] about an inch away from being down 0-2. It was a well-fought home stand... [Whistle] from Cleveland that allowed Orlando to prove... [Whistle] they could play with the Cavs and showed Cleveland that they can put themselves in the position to win any game, no matter... [Whistle] what kind of push their opponents give them at the end.
Now if that was an annoying way for me to prove a point about the officiating in this game but imagine how annoying it was to watch this game? Every other time down the floor, it seemed like a whistle was being blown. This game was saturated with whistles. I felt suffocated by Greg Willard, Joe Crawford, and Mark Wunderlich. I couldn't focus on the incredible free throw shooting by Dwight Howard who was being treated like Shaq in his prime. I couldn't enjoy the fact that LeBron was nearly scoring half of his team's points and trying to persevere through a horrific offensive performance by the team. And I couldn't analyze why Mo Williams was missing shots or how remarkable it was for Hedo to fight through his shooting woes to positively affect his team. Because more than half of the possessions in this game were stopped by officials stealing the spotlight with questionable calls against each team.
This wasn't a one-sided affair in which a team was being favored by the referees. Both teams were equally affected by the stoppages in play. Dwight Howard was knocked out of almost half of this game. And Cleveland's big men racked up six fouls apiece to foul out of the game and keep any semblance of fair, physical play to be as mythical in the NBA Playoffs as the mysterious Unicorn. There were 58 fouls called in a 92-possession game. 86 free throws were attempted in this game due to the fact that LeBron got every call that Nike could ask for and Cleveland seemed more intent on putting Dwight Howard at the line than actually defending him. But it didn't have to be that way. There could have been a good old-fashioned Eastern Conference battle between two semi-physical teams tat played tough defense and battled hard for every slight edge that could be had. Instead we had more whistle blowing than the creepy guy with a towel and tequila bottle that patrols the Tijuana dance clubs, looking for unsuspecting people to funnel alcohol into.
This wasn't a boring game by any means. But the performance by the three officials to fight and claw their way into the spotlight like some reality TV show reject made this game almost completely unwatchable. It lead to this classic, Stan Van Gundy line in the presser after the game:
Reporter: Stan, the foul that Dwight fouled out on and a couple other calls on LeBron, they looked like... they don't even look like fouls at some times. Can you comment on that?
SVG: Nope, but you can. You write a column. And see the league won't fine you $25,000 or whatever, so you write it. That's what I love; you guys see it but you don't want to write it. But you want ME to comment on it so now I'm a whiner and I get fined. You saw it; write what you saw.
I truly hate to bitch about officials. But they were atrocious tonight. Luckily, they didn't favor one side more than the other. They equally screwed both teams at the same time. This game had less of a flow then Mike Jones and T.I. on a rap collaboration.
Why the Magic Won This Game
All seven of the rotation guys for Orlando played extremely well and Orlando capitalized on these superb performances. Despite battling a horrible technical foul call and some questionable foul trouble, Dwight Howard made 14 of his 19 free throws (73.6%) and finished with 24 points in 28 minutes. Rashard Lewis shot well from the field, scored 15 points, and made a huge three to stop the Cavs from making a run early in the fourth quarter. Courtney Lee and Mickael Pietrus were fearless in their shooting and attacking the basket while doing a great job of rotating on defense. Marcin Gortat was a presence inside while Howard was on the bench. Rafer Alston made the Cavs pay for placing LeBron on him so that the Cavs could have LBJ roaming on double teams. It resulted in Rafer knocking down big shots and scoring 18 points. And Hedo Turkoglu suffered through a 0-8 start and a 1-11 shooting night. But he made up for it by rebounding (10), moving the ball (7 assists), making his free throws (11-12) and having the one shot he made be a big one that pushed the lead from six to eight with under four minutes to go. It was truly a total team effort on both sides of the ball.
Why the Cavs Lost This Game
There were three big problems with the Cavs in this game. 1) The Cavs didn't give LeBron much of any help. His teammates shot 36% from the field and his starting backcourt continued to struggle. Mo Williams is now shooting 32% from the field in this series. 2) LeBron James missed six free throws and the Cavs missed nine total. LeBron missed huge opportunities in the fourth quarter to capitalize on the over-officiating by the referee crew by missing five free throws in the final period. He's now beginning to become as serious of a choker at the line as Nick Anderson. And 3) the Cavs couldn't make a big shot when they needed to. LeBron blamed their lack of putting together a final run on all of the whistles but the truth is that they missed nine of their 11 three-point attempts in the fourth quarter. You can't win a close game if you can't knock down the big shot.
Heading into Game Four
I would hope that David Stern would look at the game film and let the next officiating crew know that they have to let these guys play. But unfortunately, I think we could be in for more of the same. If Mike Brown feels like his team's best chance is fouling Dwight Howard every time he gets the ball in deep position then we're going to have a lot of whistles again and the refs will over-blow (not meant to be a pun) the situation by calling cheap fouls to keep the game in order. I think Cleveland is going to find a way to get their shooters involved early to get this team's confidence back. It will be up to Orlando and their crowd to disrupt the Cavs' offensive attack.
Prediction: Cavs tie the series up
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