**NBA FINALS THREAD - RAPTORS DEFY GRAVITY**

[numbah1grimey]

TBH, Harden didn't have enough space to land.
But then again, the way he's flailing his legs at the end doesn't look natural.
So I'm good with a no call.
But he def got fouled earlier with Klay.

Aye man, look at this s****!!! Bruh, Harden didn’t even try to land upright. Like son is lower body fainting just to draw a foul. This ridiculous

 

[junglejim]

you had it all up until you said the playoffs is where the ref allow more stuff. What was the 1st round then? The non playoff round because if you watch the Utah series he got those calls. You can’t change the way it’s going to be called all the 1st round of the series then not in the next. Yes the final play was not a foul but the 1st half Klay should of fouled out

Refs change the way games are called all the damn time. Even between games in the same series, the way stuff is call can change dramatically. Even within quarters the refs tend to change the way the call the game. You could see it in game 1. They were letting a ton go both ways early in the quarters then started to tighten up toward the end.

Players have to adjust. End of story. Doing the same thing 6 times (or whatever the hell the count was) then expecting the refs to call it differently and not adjust is dumb.

Who gives a **** about how things were called in the regular season. The NBA has historically allowed teams to play more physical in the playoffs and players adjust.

And before you respond and say they need to call it consistently, they did. They consistently didnt call that in either team. Adjust and move on and stop expecting the refs to bail you out on one of the worst shots in all of basketball

 

[numbah1grimey]

Harden on those "missed" foul calls:

I'm so damn glad the refs didn't call any of that bull****. Keep playing for the whistle, Houston.

 

[User 15002]

Discussion in here is really surprising. Folks dislike of the Warriors is outweighing the dislike of Harden’s flopping. Nobody who appreciates good basketball would ever find themselves caping for Harden’s antics yet here we are.

Harden’s face last night was hilarious. It was like son been bowling with bumpers all season long and they removed them and he can’t understand why the ball isn’t making it to the pins now.

 

[WASHED KING]

For what it's worth Harden taking away Curry's landing space was a foul as well that wasn't called so at least it was consistent.

 

[703 hwy]

Proving that he's the best player in the East without a doubt. Thought that coming into the season and even more sure of that now

Folks can still take Embiid or Giannis but I'll take proven all around excellence in the regular and postseason over them any day of the week

Spoiler

Kiwi the real MVP

 

[trynafeelmink]

People are acting like it's just Harden who gets officiated differently in the playoffs & it's ridiculous. If you look at Giannis game yesterday he would have gotten a ton more of those calls if it wasn't the playoffs & it wasn't Horford guarding him. They allowed the game to get more physical on him & it threw him off a bit.

All i want is the game to be called equally for both teams & yesterday it was, for all the missed calls on those harden toss ups, there were missed calls on Harden pushoffs, there were missed calls on a bunch of those KD shots/possessions. I don't want either teams star players hitting the bench because of silly fouls.

Steph had 5 yesterday & they were well deserved because he was wildly reaching all game, those fouls i could live with. But racking up fouls in a playoff series when the offensive player isn't even looking to make a basket can't happen man.

 

[BIG LEEMELONE]

I've watched these plays like 20 times in a row. And I can't help but feel like if it wasn't Harden the call would've been given, he has a reputation of flopping and banking on calls from the refs we all know it.
But on those 3 shot attempts his landing space was completely taken away. No difference in those closeouts than what Zaza did to kawhi.

Hell nah . On the zaza play, Kawhi jumped BACKWARDS and zaza closed out and ran all the way up under him. In that one clip from yesterday, they drew a line showing where harden jumps from and how far he lands in front of that line. Then Steve javie tries to say that's a foul. Like..what? And I'm not buying the zaza angle when this fool harden purposely lands on feet because he knows about the new emphasis on that because of zaza. He's completely full of **** and I couldn't believe he said that. Just shows you how deep his whistle game is.

If I'm a defender and my man has space, when he pulls up I'm going to jump and close that gap from where he starts his jump. If he's drifting forward then now he's encroaching MY landing space and initiating contact. If I'm not permitted to close that space from the start of the jump, how the hell am I supposed to play defense? It's the same concept as the Reggie Miller rule where if you jump straight up and stick your leg out it's a foul because you're denying my ability to close that gap.

I'm watching clips of harden on the thunder right now and he absolutely did not used to shoot like that. He went straight up and landed in the same spot on his threes. Hell I'm watching clips from 16/17 and he didn't do that. So what does that tell you?

 

[Moheezy]

Proving that he's the best player in the East without a doubt. Thought that coming into the season and even more sure of that now

Folks can still take Embiid or Giannis but I'll take proven all around excellence in the regular and postseason over them any day of the week

Spoiler

Even as a sixers fan I acknowledge that Kawhi is better than Embiid right now. The only thing Kawhi git against him is that he's older. But hes without a doubt the best player in this series and more proven than Giannis (at this moment in time)

 

[buc em]

Discussion in here is really surprising. Folks dislike of the Warriors is outweighing the dislike of Harden’s flopping. Nobody who appreciates good basketball would ever find themselves caping for Harden’s antics yet here we are.

Harden’s face last night was hilarious. It was like son been bowling with bumpers all season long and they removed them and he can’t understand why the ball isn’t making it to the pins now.

This logic is A1

You know why Harden is able to draw so many BS fouls on guys not giving him his “landing space”? Because not only does he kick his feet out most of the time but instead of shooting like a normal shooter with his feet set towards the basket he shoots with his feet set sideways one in front of the other, making it almost impossible to get close enough to him to contest most of those jump shots without your feet or legs touching his. He also makes his legs go dead as soon as he’s landing 90% of the time further selling the contact.

Watching this dude try to manipulate the rules of the game night in and night out is ****ing disgusting.

 

[getback]

 

[Vincent Van Goat]

Proving that he's the best player in the East without a doubt. Thought that coming into the season and even more sure of that now

Folks can still take Embiid or Giannis but I'll take proven all around excellence in the regular and postseason over them any day of the week

Spoiler

Not just the east though

 

[dman14]

MVP Curry revenge tour

 

[buc em]

Proving that he's the best player in the East without a doubt. Thought that coming into the season and even more sure of that now

Folks can still take Embiid or Giannis but I'll take proven all around excellence in the regular and postseason over them any day of the week

Spoiler

Kawhi is the closest thing we’ve ever seen to Jordan’s all around skillset. Yes, even closer than Kobe. Sometimes this dude Kawhi does **** that’s almost a damn mirror image of Jordan, it’s ridiculous. Dude is so ****ing good at everything and could put up crazy numbers all season if he truly wanted to but he’s just so efficient and doesn’t force anything or try to draw BS fouls to get him those numbers like 99% of other superstars.

 

[Kinfolk]

At what point do the refs not miss calls? because there are several plays per game where they could call Harden for pushoffs or hooking the defenders arm forcing contact... there were literally four times today when he clearly did it, but they were either non calls or fouls on the defender.

to top it off look at the way him & CP3 are turning their bodies after shooting trying to force a call after, the refs can tell when your trying to game the system instead of genuinely getting fouled. There not giving you those bull**** calls in important series against other superstar players.

This is the guy the refs are supposed to give the benefit of the doubt........ you don't think these calls going in his favor/non called don't get brought up to them? you don't think this is on the back of their minds when having to make split second decisions. The playoffs FOREVER now has been known to be a place where refs allow things to get much more physical (Check Tucker/Gordon defense on "denying" KD yesterday). Now suddenly it's a conspiracy because Harden took 14 FTA

???

Show me where I said it’s a conspiracy of any kind.

The fouls I’m referring to were clear fouls and not up for any kind of debate and this is generally agreed upon by the non-hating segment of people that watched the game (I’m not even a harden or rockets fan).

Did you miss the part where the refs admitted to missing calls on Harden 3pt attempts? Those weren’t BS fouls, as you call them.

I get it, refs miss calls, it’s part of the game.

But there’s a problem when the refs miss the same call multiple times and cop to it after the fact.

 

[nickname.esco]

Lemme just say.

I been saying this since Kawhi got in the league.

That’s MJ with the braids. Period. And don’t steal that.

Second. James Harden flops and travels the most out of any ***** I ever seen play ball.
If you talking about getting calls right y’all might not even be where y’all at.

 

[Vincent Van Goat]

Leonard’s footwork and ease of getting into his spots with his back to the basket are Jordan like. The fadeaways are nutty

 

[kingfoamnyc]

It's like people forget Kawhi is a finals MVP

 

[dman14]

It's like people forget Kawhi is a finals MVP

and finished top 3 in mvp two yrs in a row and 2x first team before he took a season off

didn't even know the bucks/c's played
anyone want to give me quick rundown
from the box score, drew bledsoe got owned?

 

[getback]

Kawhi is the closest thing we’ve ever seen to Jordan’s all around skillset. Yes, even closer than Kobe. Sometimes this dude Kawhi does **** that’s almost a damn mirror image of Jordan, it’s ridiculous. Dude is so ****ing good at everything and could put up crazy numbers all season if he truly wanted to but he’s just so efficient and doesn’t force anything or try to draw BS fouls to get him those numbers like 99% of other superstars.

You really hung up on Harden huh?

 

[flyerthandelta]

Shooters need space to land as well just saying.

 

[HOU$TON]

Spurs goofed with Kawhi

 

[jking0821]

As a neutral fan watching the rockets warriors game 1 was frustrating. Each team at times (when they were in the penalty) were literally coming down the court attempting to get fouled. It was annoying to watch.

Watching it live i thought harden was fouled on the last second 3. I also thought Curry blocked him when he stepped out of bounds the play before. That stuff gets called all the time but curry had 4 fouls so i felt like they let it slide. But i am kind of glad they didn't call them even though i am at odds with how i feel about that. Honestly you could have the entire warriors team foul out and it would be understandable the way the rockets play.

edit: i get the skill set...but Kawhi is not the athlete jordan was

 

[buc em]

Leonard’s footwork and ease of getting into his spots with his back to the basket are Jordan like. The fadeaways are nutty

His handle of the ball is just ridiculous too. He’s so in control of everything he does. You can tell his core and leg strength is dumb strong cause of how good his balance is at all times. Him and Simmons ran into each other on a fast break last game like a ****ing car crash and Kawhi still maintained perfect form on his shot fading away afterwards.

 

[B Sox]

Beautiful