As a Bulls fan, Tuesday night’s game between Chicago and Denver left me with a handful of mixed emotions afterwards. One the one hand, I continue to be pleasantly surprised by the following:
- Joakim Noah, for some reason, is now the balls. I have no real explanation for it. For his first 2 years in the NBA, this man couldn’t catch, couldn’t shoot, couldn’t run, couldn’t establish himself down low, couldn’t defend any other center in the league, and he was also kind of a moron. Through 7 games so far this year, he’s been grabbing every rebound, he’s holding his ground down low, he’s running the floor without looking like he’s about to pass out, he’s even developed a jump shot that goes in despite his ridiculous shooting form, and perhaps just as importantly, he’s saying all the right things in interviews before and after games. What the hell happened? It’s like he’s a completely different guy. In a good way. It’s insane.
- Luol Deng is playing the best ball of his life. He’s relevant on the offensive end and he’s been tasked to guard the other team’s 3 every night. So far he’s done a pretty good job on some of the NBA’s best scorers. I’m not saying he’s held them in check, but he’s not getting pushed around and he’s making them work for their shots. LeBron James didn’t dominate him last week (which is a compliment), and Gerald Wallace and Carmelo Anthony both looked like shit against him this week. Keep it up, Luol.
- Somebody’s been working with Derrick Rose on the defensive end. He’s fighting through screens and he’s not getting burned. Last year, every PG in the league was beating him off the dribble. This year through 7 games, only Rondo has done it. Rondo is going to beat just about everyone, so it’s tough to be too concerned there. Overall, I’m pleased with the progression in Year 2 so far for Rose defensively, and last night, he was especially good against that total bitch Chauncey Billups, who continues to be a total bitch named Chauncey Billups. What a little bitch, that guy.
So that’s the stuff that pleased me following Tuesday night’s game. They held their own against a real good team from the West and at times, they even looked good doing it, specifically those three guys. So why the mixed emotions? One reason and one reason only; NBA referees are a complete joke.
In the last 90 seconds of that game, they made the wrong call on 4 different possessions. They missed an obvious foul on Noah as Chauncey Billups drove the lane, they called a jump ball on a Noah rebound for reasons that I still cannot explain, they made up for the no-call on Noah by calling a foul that wasn’t a foul, and lastly…well by now you’ve seen the end of the game, right? Honest to god, what the hell was that? When they waved off the final basket by Brad Miller, my first reaction was to find out what the betting line was. Was it a pick ‘em? Look, I’m not saying that any of these referees are betting on games. As an experienced law man who deals with a lot of lawyerings, I wouldn’t state something like that definitively because it could potentially be libelous if it weren’t true. But all of us should at least take the following fact under cooperation: last night, one of them made a lot of money for a group of people from Jersey with Italian-sounding names.
Also, filibuster.
In conclusion…wait, where was I? Oh right, the NBA really needs to do something about their refs. The way they’re calling games right now is pretty ridiculous.
And Chauncey Billups is a bitch.
Billups is a total bitch. His quote after the game was something like, “look at those losers celebrate like this game meant something.” I’d celebrate too if I just beat a bunch of assholes who needed the refs to bail them out.
I’m confused. Are you mad because the officials waived off a shot that didn’t leave Miller’s hand in time? Are you upset that the refs gave you a such quick time-out on that missed free throw when they clearly shouldn’t have, thus even allowing Miller to almost get a shot off? Maybe you are pissed at the rule book, which states that you can’t pivot and shoot with 0.3 seconds? Are you mad because you too were one of the people jumping and dancing as if you’d just made the Sweet 16?
Most teams will inform the ref prior to the 2nd shot that they will be calling a timeout immediately after rebounding a miss.
They should have informed the ref that Miller was going to try to pivot and shoot the ball before the red light goes off. Then the refs could have helped them there too.
Perhaps you can show me this rule and not just George Karl’s interpretation or quote. Regardless, he didn’t pivot. It was a catch and shoot.
Welcome to the party. Suns fans on your left, Mavericks fans are on your right. Mingle.
Goddamn I love the Bulls.
/Lets get DWade bitches.
Great catch and shoot. Too bad it took him 0.32 seconds to do it.
Not sure they would do that for Miller. If it was MJ they wouldn’t have started the clock until after he shot it.
Although I hate the Thuggets, I’m agreeing with Triston that he didn’t get the shot off.
If he went straight up it’s be fine. But he held it while falling back.
Right and there was still 0.33 seconds left on the clock. Fucking refs.
Damn clock operators only using one-tenth of a second. Might as well be using a calendar.
That would be a hundredth you no math knowing motherfucker.
/flexes
//again
Did you read what I wrote? Or can you not tell time? NBA uses clocks that use a tenth. Happy needs them to use a hundredth. Get your shit together. Fuck!
Step into my office
Triston, I understood what you meant. But to be fair to Hef, it took me like 5 re-reads before I figured it out. So he probably should have called you a no clear message having motherfucker rather than a no math knowing motherfucker.