2011 Playoffs: (1) Bulls vs. (5) Hawks

[Andrew]

Could've sworn Pippen had a couple but thinking back I can't recall any, so guess not. There you go.

[benji]

In fairness, only two Bulls other than that loser chucker they had in the 80-90s have done it, Ben Gordon and Flynn Robinson.

[George7]

That's a nice game for the Bulls. Probably,by term of scoring and defense their best game in the postseason,not only Rose's.
Rose was just amazing. 44 points with over 50% shooting and I'm pretty much confident that this can end at 5 games.Bulls are on a roll as it seems with the 2 convincing victories and I think it's the best time to finish them of with a win in Game 4 and then make the series history in Chicago...

[Murat]

Rose's MVP award is a boost for Bulls, hope they win.

[Martti.]

Korver shaking off his 1-9 shooting with 3-4 from three. Hells yeah.

[Killer Crossover aka OG]

Good that they have won away Once again a very good performance by De-Rose

[rise]

I will have NONE of this bad mouthing of the MVP.

He didn't have to go team up with other people to become a winner!

Who are Carlos Boozer, Joakim Noah, and Luol Deng? Scrubs?

Congrats to D-Rose on his career-high point, though!

[Alpha_]

Damn! Rose is unstoppable.

No doubt, he's the best PG in the NBA right now.

[Andrew]

Not quite as an impressive start for the Bulls in Game 4, still plenty of time left though.

[benji]

Hawks looking good so far. The MVP* needs to take over if the Bulls want to take advantage of the fact they don't have to defeat Kobe Bryant.

[puttincomputers]

badly reffed game!

[benji]

M-V-Teague has been great. Botched layups early, but doesn't give a fuck, still blowing through the D to the basket.

[atlwarrior]

Hawks are kind of fiesty tonight. Josh Smith is playing extremely well which is a huge boost for the Hawks. That last turnover by D-Rose really hurt the Bulls chances.

[Andrew]

Bulls have flopped in the fourth. Beyond that, you're not going to win too many while you're shooting around 40% from the field and your opponent is up around the 50% clip. Not the result I was hoping for, hopefully they can bounce back at home in Game 5.

[benji]

Welp, that's that. Series evened up.

Love that Smith botched the last dunk, perfect Josh Smith.

[Alpha_]

Series tied up..

[atlwarrior]

My seven game series prediction is looking good so far. I really hope it doesn't have to come down to that though and the Bulls can close it out in 6.

[Andrew]

Really? I thought you were cheering for the Hawks in this one, hometown ties and all.

[atlwarrior]

Really? I thought you were cheering for the Hawks in this one, hometown ties and all.

Nope I'm all for the Bulls man .

[Andrew]

My mistake, right on.

[Lamrock]

Blows < MV-Teague. Looks like the Hawks losing in a classic 6-7 game sweep though.

[Andrew]

NBA ref admits he blew call on inadvertent whistle

With 2 1/2 minutes remaining and the Hawks leading 90-84, Bulls star Derrick Rose(notes) went up for a shot beyond the 3-point stripe and appeared to be fouled by Jamal Crawford(notes).

Salvatore blew his whistle, but ruled he had done it inadvertently. That led to a jump ball, which Atlanta’s Josh Smith(notes) tapped away from Joakim Noah(notes). The Hawks scored on that possession to essentially finish off the Bulls.

That's a pretty big error to make and even though he is a senior official, he should be held accountable for it. When a player makes an error in judgement and sullies the game's image, they are made to pay for it. The same should apply to the officials. Along with the other quibbles with officiating in the postseason, it's also a good reason to expand the instant replay rules so that these things can be double checked and human error has less of an impact on the game.

However...

The Bulls lost this one. As I've said in other threads, you don't want to rely on the officials getting it right each and every time to win a game. You can't shoot 40% from the field night in and night out and win games. Maybe this blown call did get in the way of one final push, but ideally you never want to be in that position in the first place. They simply have to play better, go home and take care of business in Game 5 then try to finish the Hawks off in six back in Atlanta. I believe they can win in seven if it comes to that, but I'd prefer they didn't leave the door open like that.

[benji]

It's worth noting that the referees ARE punished for things like this, it's just not announced because of the deal with the union. (And it works like suspensions in a respect, in that it's based on next season's scheduling.)

What I think it was is that he saw the contact, blew, then realized that Rose had jumped into Crawford after Crawford had gone up in what he thought was the attempt. Not saying that call doesn't happen all the time, but some refs refuse to call it if the offensive player is the one to initiate the contact. Basically in the half second after he called he decided he was wrong you can see he raises his hand for the foul, until both players are back on the ground and then he does the "waive off" call.

There's also the crowd noise which apparently was huge oddly tonight for a Hawks game, it's why Pachulia didn't know a whistle was blown earlier when he blocked Gibson after the play, and then he thought the foul was on him because he hadn't heard the first one. Which explains quite a few of the post-call stuff tonight. (Not this one obviously.) Apparently that's the same reason that the two games in OKC wound being called the way they were, it was just too loud at times.

[Andrew]

I wasn't aware of that, is that agreement a recent addition to the deal with the officials? I figured the league would be able to be transparent about things like that, given the situation with Joey Crawford and Tim Duncan a few years back.

[benji]

No, it dates back to at least the 90s.

What happens is that the referees submit game reports (they were talking about this in the Lakers game today to help determine the Bynum punishment) and the league reviews this along with they have video people who review each game. From these combined the referees basically get a grade for how well they call games.

This grade determines how many games you work next season and (this along with the season that happens) how many playoff games you get. Since the refs are paid by the game (and more for playoffs) the league effectively does something like "your grade says 35 games, but you get 33 because of these penalties."

It's really in a crazy example like Crawford in which there literally is zero justification for what he did, unlike this where it's a mistaken call and while you can say it screwed the Bulls it's hard to say it was personal like the Crawford thing, that they announce the penalties. There are a number of other examples where they do announce the number of games, but it's generally just really shitty stuff like that. For a mistaken call like this, it's probably just a grade hit.

Of course, since it's a union, seniority takes priority over most everything.

EDIT: To add, one reason they don't publicize it is that they're afraid refs will be singled out for abuse. Look at the recent thing with who reffed the one game in Mavericks first round and his record against them. Consider that in most games, few fans know which ref made which call, etc. I believe this is one of the arguments they made post-Donaghy.