20 years (and 1 day) later- Finals Game 1 GDT

[FNG]

After 7 mostly blowouts against Denver, we finally got a close game with some drama. Unfortunately we ended up on the losing side. I didn't like the outcome, but I found the game very entertaining and well-played. I'm really looking forward to the next 6 games (and I think there will be 6 more).

News flash: I'm not a professional athlete. So I'm not able to get into their heads. So I fully admit I don't understand the whole "poke the bear" narrative that Charles, Kyrie and others are using to explain why Kyrie so badly outplayed Ant last night. To me, Ant did nothing wrong when he said "I got Kyrie" after Game 7. But I guess in the head of a professional athlete that becomes a motivational event that swings the outcome of the game. Ant needs to be very vocal today praising Kyrie, or he may get outplayed again.

But the real story last night was unfortunately a continuing story. Two words: Naz Reid. (Warning for those who prefer to ignore +/- stats: turn away from this post now). Naz is a fan favorite and a very good offensive player, but we are getting badly outscored almost every time he's on the court because of his horrible defense. Last night he was a team-worst -10, and for those who need a somewhat larger sample size, his on/off stat for the entire post-season is a very bad -16.2. Naz is a scoring option off the bench and Finchie has to play him to give Rudy and KAT a blow. But he is who we thought he was, and we are almost always going to be outscored when this classic one-way player is on the court. Finchie needs to play him, but I don't think we can withstand 24 minutes of his turnstile defense.

But what I didn't anticipate was how consistently badly we would be outscored in this postseason with NAW on the court. He is even worse in on/off than Naz in the offseason with a disastrous -23.2, and I think that is why Finchie limited his minutes to only 16 last night (compared to 23.4 during the regular season). But he was a -5 in those minutes, despite looking very effective to me guarding Kyrie. NAW's problem this offseason is the opposite of Naz...he's not providing the offense he provided during the regular season, because he's not hitting his threes. He was 0 for 4 again last night, and he has missed his last 9. But while I think Finchie needs to limit Naz's minutes to 12-15, he needs to play NAW more and hope (expect?) he progresses to his 3-point shooting mean. We're going to need his defense on Kyrie to keep Ant fresh.

The other continuing factor in last night's game was how Lively continues to badly outplay starting center Gafford. He's done it the entire postseason. Kidd was at least smart enough to give his reserve center more minutes than his starter. We need to hope though that he continues to start Gafford and play him a lot.

The Denver series was dull despite going 7 games. I think this one is going to be a barnburner. It's gonna be fun!



Postscript: We probably haven't talked enough about the bad offensive goaltending call on KAT on a play that would have tied the game. When I was watching live, I said "Crap, that's goaltending". But the replay to me clearly showed the ball was not in the cylinder. I was stunned when our challenge was not successful. That was a critical bad call. I don't think the 2-minute report is out yet, but I expect to see this on it.

Glad you raised this, FNG. When I saw the replay on the big screen I noticed the ball was clearly outside the cylinder and I was convinced the call would be overturned. I’m still shocked that it wasn’t. I continue to grow more and more suspicious of NBA officiating. I never bought the notion that Tim Donaghy was a complete anomaly among NBA officials and I’ve never been a conspiracy theorist. David Stern was obviously determined to avoid any inquiry to avoid a more widespread scandal that could have seriously damaged the NBA brand, which relies on at least the appearance of integrity. David Stern was a force of nature with immense power - hence his ability to sweep or keep things under the rug that would otherwise tend to be exposed. But history tells us that hidden corruption will fester and spread, becoming more widespread and insidious. I don’t think that every NBA official is involved in betting on games, but I’m convinced that some are. Yet, it’s not just gambling. The Tim Donaghy documentary exposes incidents of NBA officials deliberating attempting to impact outcomes via vendettas against for favoritism towards individual players and/or teams.

Last night’s obviously skewed officiating can’t be ignored or explained away as happenstance. The fact that Kyrie and Luka each had more foul shots than Ant and KAT combined it telling. That disparity can be explained in part by a lack of aggressiveness by Ant going to the hole but it was more than that. The juxtaposition of touch calls on Luka and non-calls on Ant and KAT was unacceptable. Something troubling was going on, especially with official #8. When he stepped up to the microphone on the challenge to the foul call on Mike Conley and explained the decision to uphold the call by describing Conley’s action as a “subtle but effective push in the back” it sounded like a guy going out of his way to cover for what he knew was a night’s worth of highly questionable officiating. His explanation struck me as gratuitous and defensive.

The Wolves still could and should have won the game last night in spite of the highly questionable officiating. But no team should have to overcome officiating as obviously skewed as the officiating we saw last night. Ultimately the NBA won’t be able to survive long-term if the League fails to squarely address the festering problem that David Stern swept under the rug 17 years ago.

In all fairness though, Lip, we had one more free throw attempt than Dallas, so I don't know how we can complain about that. The real problem was we only made 61% of our free throws, and they made 94%. We win if we make our free ones.

[TheGrey08]

News flash: I'm not a professional athlete. So I'm not able to get into their heads. So I fully admit I don't understand the whole "poke the bear" narrative that Charles, Kyrie and others are using to explain why Kyrie so badly outplayed Ant last night. To me, Ant did nothing wrong when he said "I got Kyrie" after Game 7. But I guess in the head of a professional athlete that becomes a motivational event that swings the outcome of the game. Ant needs to be very vocal today praising Kyrie, or he may get outplayed again.


Postscript: We probably haven't talked enough about the bad offensive goaltending call on KAT on a play that would have tied the game. When I was watching live, I said "Crap, that's goaltending". But the replay to me clearly showed the ball was not in the cylinder. I was stunned when our challenge was not successful. That was a critical bad call. I don't think the 2-minute report is out yet, but I expect to see this on it.

Narrowed quote down to just these 2 chunks.

This "Ant called out Kyrie" narrative is such BS. In the post game presser he literally said his matchup would probably be Kyrie. It wasn't a "call out" like these national idiots keep talking about. They tried to stir it up in the G1 post game interview with Kyrie and he blew it off and said he took it was respect. These people LOVE drama and nonsense.

There might have been a sliver of ball eclipsing the edge of the rim on that dumb call. That happens ALL the time in the NBA and never gets called. You just don't call that in the playoffs. If the ball isn't clearly over the cylinder then you don't make that call. It's that simple IMO. What made all this worse is the Mavs got every single 50/50 call. At a certain point refs need to understand that giving 1 team all the borderline calls is swinging the game.

Conley barely touches a guy in the back, he flops and a foul is called.
Jaden charge when the defender was still moving.
Multiple weak soft calls in a game that they were letting them be physical including Ant getting substantial contact on 2 drives with no call.

The most egregious call of the night that was the epitome of officiating last night was that PATHETIC flop by Doncic. He throws himself into the defender and throws himself on the floor. 100% of the contact was on him. A "James Harden" call if you will. That shit right there single-handedly makes me not want to watch the NBA. Those should be techs and fines and NEVER called. In the NHL he'd have been in the box for 2 min for diving. It's BS and is the absolute worst calls made in the NBA.

[rapsuperstar31]

News flash: I'm not a professional athlete. So I'm not able to get into their heads. So I fully admit I don't understand the whole "poke the bear" narrative that Charles, Kyrie and others are using to explain why Kyrie so badly outplayed Ant last night. To me, Ant did nothing wrong when he said "I got Kyrie" after Game 7. But I guess in the head of a professional athlete that becomes a motivational event that swings the outcome of the game. Ant needs to be very vocal today praising Kyrie, or he may get outplayed again.


Postscript: We probably haven't talked enough about the bad offensive goaltending call on KAT on a play that would have tied the game. When I was watching live, I said "Crap, that's goaltending". But the replay to me clearly showed the ball was not in the cylinder. I was stunned when our challenge was not successful. That was a critical bad call. I don't think the 2-minute report is out yet, but I expect to see this on it.

Narrowed quote down to just these 2 chunks.

This "Ant called out Kyrie" narrative is such BS. In the post game presser he literally said his matchup would probably be Kyrie. It wasn't a "call out" like these national idiots keep talking about. They tried to stir it up in the G1 post game interview with Kyrie and he blew it off and said he took it was respect. These people LOVE drama and nonsense.

There might have been a sliver of ball eclipsing the edge of the rim on that dumb call. That happens ALL the time in the NBA and never gets called. You just don't call that in the playoffs. If the ball isn't clearly over the cylinder then you don't make that call. It's that simple IMO. What made all this worse is the Mavs got every single 50/50 call. At a certain point refs need to understand that giving 1 team all the borderline calls is swinging the game.

Conley barely touches a guy in the back, he flops and a foul is called.
Jaden charge when the defender was still moving.
Multiple weak soft calls in a game that they were letting them be physical including Ant getting substantial contact on 2 drives with no call.

The most egregious call of the night that was the epitome of officiating last night was that PATHETIC flop by Doncic. He throws himself into the defender and throws himself on the floor. 100% of the contact was on him. A "James Harden" call if you will. That shit right there single-handedly makes me not want to watch the NBA. Those should be techs and fines and NEVER called. In the NHL he'd have been in the box for 2 min for diving. It's BS and is the absolute worst calls made in the NBA.

If that Conley touch to the back is a foul, there should never be a rebound in an NBA game, every time a shot goes up there should be a foul on a player for even the lightest touch and just non stop free throws.

[TheGrey08]

Glad you raised this, FNG. When I saw the replay on the big screen I noticed the ball was clearly outside the cylinder and I was convinced the call would be overturned. I’m still shocked that it wasn’t. I continue to grow more and more suspicious of NBA officiating. I never bought the notion that Tim Donaghy was a complete anomaly among NBA officials and I’ve never been a conspiracy theorist. David Stern was obviously determined to avoid any inquiry to avoid a more widespread scandal that could have seriously damaged the NBA brand, which relies on at least the appearance of integrity. David Stern was a force of nature with immense power - hence his ability to sweep or keep things under the rug that would otherwise tend to be exposed. But history tells us that hidden corruption will fester and spread, becoming more widespread and insidious. I don’t think that every NBA official is involved in betting on games, but I’m convinced that some are. Yet, it’s not just gambling. The Tim Donaghy documentary exposes incidents of NBA officials deliberating attempting to impact outcomes via vendettas against for favoritism towards individual players and/or teams.

Last night’s obviously skewed officiating can’t be ignored or explained away as happenstance. The fact that Kyrie and Luka each had more foul shots than Ant and KAT combined it telling. That disparity can be explained in part by a lack of aggressiveness by Ant going to the hole but it was more than that. The juxtaposition of touch calls on Luka and non-calls on Ant and KAT was unacceptable. Something troubling was going on, especially with official #8. When he stepped up to the microphone on the challenge to the foul call on Mike Conley and explained the decision to uphold the call by describing Conley’s action as a “subtle but effective push in the back” it sounded like a guy going out of his way to cover for what he knew was a night’s worth of highly questionable officiating. His explanation struck me as gratuitous and defensive.

The Wolves still could and should have won the game last night in spite of the highly questionable officiating. But no team should have to overcome officiating as obviously skewed as the officiating we saw last night. Ultimately the NBA won’t be able to survive long-term if the League fails to squarely address the festering problem that David Stern swept under the rug 17 years ago.

In all fairness though, Lip, we had one more free throw attempt than Dallas, so I don't know how we can complain about that. The real problem was we only made 61% of our free throws, and they made 94%. We win if we make our free ones.

FNG, consistent and evenly called games are about more than just how many fouls/FTs each team got. It's a key barometer, but it ignores how many legit fouls occurred vs called among other things.

EX: (% just for examples sake)
Team A gets called for 80% of their fouls and shoot 21 FTs
Team B gets called for 60% of their fouls and shoot 20 FTs

^That would not be equal/balanced and fair officiating.

Other areas being consistency in calling the same things both ways, allowing equal amounts of physicality on offense & defense (DEN series was SUS at this), avoiding phantom calls (Doncic), etc.

[TheGrey08]

If that Conley touch to the back is a foul, there should never be a rebound in an NBA game, every time a shot goes up there should be a foul on a player for even the lightest touch and just non stop free throws.

Agreed. The one on Rudy I thought was a fine call as he clearly pushed, but Conley barely touched the guy.

[FNG]

Glad you raised this, FNG. When I saw the replay on the big screen I noticed the ball was clearly outside the cylinder and I was convinced the call would be overturned. I’m still shocked that it wasn’t. I continue to grow more and more suspicious of NBA officiating. I never bought the notion that Tim Donaghy was a complete anomaly among NBA officials and I’ve never been a conspiracy theorist. David Stern was obviously determined to avoid any inquiry to avoid a more widespread scandal that could have seriously damaged the NBA brand, which relies on at least the appearance of integrity. David Stern was a force of nature with immense power - hence his ability to sweep or keep things under the rug that would otherwise tend to be exposed. But history tells us that hidden corruption will fester and spread, becoming more widespread and insidious. I don’t think that every NBA official is involved in betting on games, but I’m convinced that some are. Yet, it’s not just gambling. The Tim Donaghy documentary exposes incidents of NBA officials deliberating attempting to impact outcomes via vendettas against for favoritism towards individual players and/or teams.

Last night’s obviously skewed officiating can’t be ignored or explained away as happenstance. The fact that Kyrie and Luka each had more foul shots than Ant and KAT combined it telling. That disparity can be explained in part by a lack of aggressiveness by Ant going to the hole but it was more than that. The juxtaposition of touch calls on Luka and non-calls on Ant and KAT was unacceptable. Something troubling was going on, especially with official #8. When he stepped up to the microphone on the challenge to the foul call on Mike Conley and explained the decision to uphold the call by describing Conley’s action as a “subtle but effective push in the back” it sounded like a guy going out of his way to cover for what he knew was a night’s worth of highly questionable officiating. His explanation struck me as gratuitous and defensive.

The Wolves still could and should have won the game last night in spite of the highly questionable officiating. But no team should have to overcome officiating as obviously skewed as the officiating we saw last night. Ultimately the NBA won’t be able to survive long-term if the League fails to squarely address the festering problem that David Stern swept under the rug 17 years ago.

In all fairness though, Lip, we had one more free throw attempt than Dallas, so I don't know how we can complain about that. The real problem was we only made 61% of our free throws, and they made 94%. We win if we make our free ones.

FNG, consistent and evenly called games are about more than just how many fouls/FTs each team got. It's a key barometer, but it ignores how many legit fouls occurred vs called among other things.

EX: (% just for examples sake)
Team A gets called for 80% of their fouls and shoot 21 FTs
Team B gets called for 60% of their fouls and shoot 20 FTs

^That would not be equal/balanced and fair officiating.

Other areas being consistency in calling the same things both ways, allowing equal amounts of physicality on offense & defense (DEN series was SUS at this), avoiding phantom calls (Doncic), etc.

I've watched sports a long time, Grey, and I know for sure Maverick fans are saying "How can we take all our shots near the basket, while the Wolves are putting up 3-pointers, and they end up shooting more free throws than us? Doesn't make sense!" True fans are always going to focus on the calls that go against them, and ignore the ones that go for them. Our guys played passively on offense and took 24 more 3-pointer than Dallas did! Meanwhile Dallas attacked the basket and outscored us in the paint 62-38! We're all smart basketball fans here, and we know that you don't usually get foul calls if you're jacking up 3-pointers all game. If Ant and KAT start attacking the basket, we'll get the calls.

[TheGrey08]

I've watched sports a long time, Grey, and I know for sure Maverick fans are saying "How can we take all our shots near the basket, while the Wolves are putting up 3-pointers, and they end up shooting more free throws than us? Doesn't make sense!" True fans are always going to focus on the calls that go against them, and ignore the ones that go for them. Our guys played passively on offense and took 24 more 3-pointer than Dallas did! Meanwhile Dallas attacked the basket and outscored us in the paint 62-38! We're all smart basketball fans here, and we know that you don't usually get foul calls if you're jacking up 3-pointers all game. If Ant and KAT start attacking the basket, we'll get the calls.

Oh for sure. I'm not blaming this L on the refs, but they certainly made matters worse. Despite several SUS calls like the goal tending, the Wolves still had this game in their hands and failed to take it. Giving up 62 in the paint including 20 points on easy dunks (as well as 11 ORB) is horrendous and is my clear #1 reason for the loss. Passively taking 3s, even if they were mostly good shots like Finchy said, is still not a good overall game, especially with so many key situations they needed to attack the paint.

My issue was the amount of 50/50 grey area calls that seemed to all go the Mavs way, especially in the 4th.

Regarding the foul balance, take those 20 easy gimmie layup/dunk points out and we end up around 42-38 (possibly less than 38 if MN had a few of those as well) in terms of plays that were closer/more likely to have contact, etc.

[Lipoli390]

After 7 mostly blowouts against Denver, we finally got a close game with some drama. Unfortunately we ended up on the losing side. I didn't like the outcome, but I found the game very entertaining and well-played. I'm really looking forward to the next 6 games (and I think there will be 6 more).

News flash: I'm not a professional athlete. So I'm not able to get into their heads. So I fully admit I don't understand the whole "poke the bear" narrative that Charles, Kyrie and others are using to explain why Kyrie so badly outplayed Ant last night. To me, Ant did nothing wrong when he said "I got Kyrie" after Game 7. But I guess in the head of a professional athlete that becomes a motivational event that swings the outcome of the game. Ant needs to be very vocal today praising Kyrie, or he may get outplayed again.

But the real story last night was unfortunately a continuing story. Two words: Naz Reid. (Warning for those who prefer to ignore +/- stats: turn away from this post now). Naz is a fan favorite and a very good offensive player, but we are getting badly outscored almost every time he's on the court because of his horrible defense. Last night he was a team-worst -10, and for those who need a somewhat larger sample size, his on/off stat for the entire post-season is a very bad -16.2. Naz is a scoring option off the bench and Finchie has to play him to give Rudy and KAT a blow. But he is who we thought he was, and we are almost always going to be outscored when this classic one-way player is on the court. Finchie needs to play him, but I don't think we can withstand 24 minutes of his turnstile defense.

But what I didn't anticipate was how consistently badly we would be outscored in this postseason with NAW on the court. He is even worse in on/off than Naz in the offseason with a disastrous -23.2, and I think that is why Finchie limited his minutes to only 16 last night (compared to 23.4 during the regular season). But he was a -5 in those minutes, despite looking very effective to me guarding Kyrie. NAW's problem this offseason is the opposite of Naz...he's not providing the offense he provided during the regular season, because he's not hitting his threes. He was 0 for 4 again last night, and he has missed his last 9. But while I think Finchie needs to limit Naz's minutes to 12-15, he needs to play NAW more and hope (expect?) he progresses to his 3-point shooting mean. We're going to need his defense on Kyrie to keep Ant fresh.

The other continuing factor in last night's game was how Lively continues to badly outplay starting center Gafford. He's done it the entire postseason. Kidd was at least smart enough to give his reserve center more minutes than his starter. We need to hope though that he continues to start Gafford and play him a lot.

The Denver series was dull despite going 7 games. I think this one is going to be a barnburner. It's gonna be fun!



Postscript: We probably haven't talked enough about the bad offensive goaltending call on KAT on a play that would have tied the game. When I was watching live, I said "Crap, that's goaltending". But the replay to me clearly showed the ball was not in the cylinder. I was stunned when our challenge was not successful. That was a critical bad call. I don't think the 2-minute report is out yet, but I expect to see this on it.

Glad you raised this, FNG. When I saw the replay on the big screen I noticed the ball was clearly outside the cylinder and I was convinced the call would be overturned. I’m still shocked that it wasn’t. I continue to grow more and more suspicious of NBA officiating. I never bought the notion that Tim Donaghy was a complete anomaly among NBA officials and I’ve never been a conspiracy theorist. David Stern was obviously determined to avoid any inquiry to avoid a more widespread scandal that could have seriously damaged the NBA brand, which relies on at least the appearance of integrity. David Stern was a force of nature with immense power - hence his ability to sweep or keep things under the rug that would otherwise tend to be exposed. But history tells us that hidden corruption will fester and spread, becoming more widespread and insidious. I don’t think that every NBA official is involved in betting on games, but I’m convinced that some are. Yet, it’s not just gambling. The Tim Donaghy documentary exposes incidents of NBA officials deliberating attempting to impact outcomes via vendettas against for favoritism towards individual players and/or teams.

Last night’s obviously skewed officiating can’t be ignored or explained away as happenstance. The fact that Kyrie and Luka each had more foul shots than Ant and KAT combined it telling. That disparity can be explained in part by a lack of aggressiveness by Ant going to the hole but it was more than that. The juxtaposition of touch calls on Luka and non-calls on Ant and KAT was unacceptable. Something troubling was going on, especially with official #8. When he stepped up to the microphone on the challenge to the foul call on Mike Conley and explained the decision to uphold the call by describing Conley’s action as a “subtle but effective push in the back” it sounded like a guy going out of his way to cover for what he knew was a night’s worth of highly questionable officiating. His explanation struck me as gratuitous and defensive.

The Wolves still could and should have won the game last night in spite of the highly questionable officiating. But no team should have to overcome officiating as obviously skewed as the officiating we saw last night. Ultimately the NBA won’t be able to survive long-term if the League fails to squarely address the festering problem that David Stern swept under the rug 17 years ago.

In all fairness though, Lip, we had one more free throw attempt than Dallas, so I don't know how we can complain about that. The real problem was we only made 61% of our free throws, and they made 94%. We win if we make our free ones.

I lot of those calls on Dallas came late in the 4th quarter as non-shooting fouls when the officials looked up at the scoreboard and realized they hadn’t made any calls against Dallas. They were meaningless fouls. But the basket interference call along with the tricky-tack calls that put Luka on the line and the non-calls that would have put Ant on the line were highly consequential.

Having said all that, I’ll reiterate my view that the Wolves could and should have won the game. Simply making a few more free throws or KAT making a couple more shots - still way below his capability - would have won the game.

[TheGrey08]

I lot of those calls on Dallas came late in the 4th quarter as non-shooting fouls when the officials looked up at the scoreboard and realized they hadn’t made any calls against Dallas. They were meaningless fouls. But the basket interference call along with the tricky-tack calls that put Luka on the line and the non-calls that would have put Ant on the line were highly consequential.

Having said all that, I’ll reiterate my view that the Wolves could and should have won the game. Simply making a few more free throws or KAT making a couple more shots - still way below his capability - would have won the game.

Fair point on the mostly meaningless late game fouls.

The 2 calls that pissed me off the most was the KAT goal tend and the Luka throw myself into the defender and onto the floor BS. No defender in the league can avoid that nonsense if they keep calling those. Those 2 directly affected the final few minutes of the game. Cannot have those. We should have had a back & forth 1 possession game the last minute or so instead of a 3-4 point swing (can't recall if he hit both FTs or not)

[FNG]

I agree with you guys that this game was ours for the taking, and that's why I'm not as discouraged as I thought I might be after losing a Game 1. This is going to go 7 I think, and we have proven to be a terrific playoff road team. The two calls that most pissed me off were of course the goaltending call on KAT, and the offensive rebound call on Conley- I really thought both would be overturned on challenge. The 2-minute report isn't out yet, but I hope to see them on there.

I'm off to the gym where I'll listen to a couple Dallas podcasts. I'll report back on how they believe KAT's ball was in the cylinder and Conley nearly killed the guy jumping over his back on the rebound!