DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum NBA Finals: Cavs vs Warriors & Zebras

So, now the latest word is that Kevin Love might face suspension because he left the bench during that final scuffle at the end of the game last night. Meanwhile Braymont likely got away with an intentional poke to Lebrons face and got to taunt the Cavs for the final minute of the game with no reprocussions.

Last night was a disgrace to the NBA. Pure and simple. I am typically not one to call out refs or point fingers at anyone. Typically, no matter how a game is called, you play with what you dealt. I don't like complaining about refs or "bad calls" because its ALWAYS the losing team that does so.

With that said, I have no doubt in my mind that the NBA is rigged.

The best player ever the best team ever. And we are talking about the refs.
NBA is screwed up.

So we’re looking at love and TT possible suspension

which is crap, love was on the court before the altercation started. The ref that ejected TT needs suspended as well.

I haven't posted or commented since yesterday afternoon, but I was SO angry that I couldn't sleep last night. A few thoughts:

1. Lebron is simply amazing. What he's doing right now is incredible IMO.

2. I cannot fathom what JR Smith was doing.

3. The overturn of the charge was criminal. A disgrace.

4. George Hill makes the final FT and overtime is out of the equation. We have a 50% chance to win. When he missed, the chances went down to about 10%.

5. Steph Curry is unbelievably good.

6. The Warriors behavior is a black eye for the NBA. It's disgusting to me.

7. I feel like we gave them our best shot, and had it stolen away. Such a kick in the gut.

Lebron scores career high in playoffs, 51 points and we still lose by 10. Compounding that is the worst officiating in any game of any sport I've ever seen...When you have NBA players not on GS saying it was BS, theres something to it...anyone with a set of eyes and vague understanding of the rules knows that should have never even been challenged...I hate instant replay in any sport...add another ref and train them better. Replay slows the game down and they still get the calls wrong. I'm not sure what else they can do. JR shouldn't ever see the floor rest of series...Lying saying he knew it was tied...yea thats why the replay showed your mouth saying " I thought we were up" or why you didn't go right back up with the ball when you were 3 feet away from the rim. At minimum you call a time out with 4 seconds left and let lebron do his thing...poor coaching and bad awareness by the guys on the floor. Lue needs to dust off Hood for some minutes..dude can shoot the 3 and make his own shot..if he's engaged he could be that 3rd option for us. we had 2 guys over 20 and the next closest and last in double figures was JR with 10.. meanwhile GSW had 3 over 20 and 5 in double digits.

I think you need to start Nance over TT..much more versatile than TT and TT got his ass handed to him last night. His inability to develop any type of offensive game really makes him a liability if he's not defending well. I think he would be better with the second unit.

Jr said he knew it was tied and thought the play was to call a timeout.

whats sad is not only are we all talking about what happened, no one is talking about LeBron calling for a time and not getting that either....the refs were a disgrace to the game, and GS and vegas couldn't be happier.

You can poke Lebrons eyes out mid game you get a penalty.

You brush the back of someones arm with your forearm you get thrown out with 2 seconds left and possibly 2 players suspended.

what a joke

how about the PHANTOM fouls on a few CLEAN strips by LBJ and Hill down the stretch?? Just laughable

A few comments about the game:

--Our energy level was very high. We played good D for most of the night. We had some breakdowns, but it's BB and that happens.

--Our offense was pretty good most of the night. Guys were doing their jobs.

--LeBron was magnificent. You guys said it all, so I won't expound, but man, it's an honor to watch him play.

--You guys were ragging on Clarkson and yes, he was off, but he can create his own shot and playsfaster than other guys. We need him to start hitting.

--I don't understand why Lue takes out TT for such long periods of time. It's like he is listening to the dumbass comments of lead. Our rebounding, intensity, defense, and screen setting go away when he's out. The game isn't all about scoring.

--It's really tough that we outplayed them and lost. They made so many desperation shots as the shot-clock was expiring. This loss may be hard to overcome. I can only hope that it gives us confidence, but man, we certainly outplayed them.

--I hate complaining about the refs, but that was disgusting. They did the same thing to the Rockets. Many NBA players were openly critical of the officiating in that series and the refs gave the world even more ammo last night. I'm very disturbed by what is occurring.

--I hate to end on a negative, so I'll say that I was very proud of my team last night and I'm thankful that they gave me so much to root for.

HAHAHAHAHAHA..don't know why he takes TT out yet my analysis sucks....how about his whopping 2 points and 5 boards and the worst +/- on the team outside of JR...not to mention Nance was clearly outplaying him and clarkson didn't hit anything and his "creating his shot" is taking 5 on 1 and dribbling into a turnover...lol...god you are dumb

I can imagine vers and lead going at it like this is probably how JR got treated in the locker room after the game lololol

Kevin Love being suspended would be a joke. Tristan Thompson would kind of deserve it though. Not for the fraudulent flagrant 2 on Livingston but for shoving the ball in Green's face for no reason.

All in all, that was about as deflating of a finish as I've ever seen. Just terrible. Awful officiating culminating in overturning the charge (which it was) into a blocking foul on Lebron.

I can accept Hill splitting a pair of free throws. It happens to everybody. But wtf was JR doing? And to say he thought we were tied afterward.. yeah ok. Dude obviously had his head out of the game. You could actually tell before the free throw sequence started. Watch his body language before Hill goes to the line.

Made me think of DC's thread in the other forum about team building activities.

Mental mistakes (JR) are always tougher for me to handle than physical ones (Hill's missed FT).

When I saw JR get the rebound, I quickly thought: TIMEOUT! ... I know Lebron signaled for one (a little too late), but to not get a shot up at that point is just bad basketball and intelligence

watch the full replay when they are walking back to the bench..he tells lebron "I thought we were up" Let's not forget the play at the end of the half..all he had to do was stay put and play defense and contest the shot...but he gambles and lost.

yeah, the play at the end of the half KILLED our momentum. I had a feeling it would be a big play

I feel like JR is going to take the Bill Buckner brunt of this loss, when it's not entirely his fault. Yeah, it was kind of a bone-headed play, but any one of the other Cavs could of called time, and Hill probably should of hit that free throw.

Still, ESPN seem to be pinning things on JR and making excuses for the refs, probably because their contract with the NBA demands it. If the league decides to suspend Love and Tristan for Game 2, the team should just refuse to come out for Game 2 and take a forfeit loss. If the league wants to force the Cavs into another loss, then the Cavs should just hand a loss (of revenue) right back at the league. The league should be handing out apologies and referee suspensions after last night. Not adding insult to injury.

Honestly, this loss feels right up there with The Fumble game. If only The Fumble involved the refs gift wrapping Denver's go-ahead touchdown with 3-4 bad pass interference calls, and Bernie putting up 550 yards of passing before Byner fumbled it.

I imagine it was very quiet around JR in the locker room. He probably felt as lonely as any man has ever felt in a room full of people.

Fine, activate Perkins and make sure he gets the most out of all 6 of his fouls.

I've never wanted to see a player get punched in the face as much as I do Draymond Green.. dude runs his mouth constantly and his contribution to their win was 1 shot near the end of the game and intentionally poking LeBron in the face..

And if they are going to call a foul every time somebody gets close to KD and Curry, then damn it get your money's worth.. make it a FOUL!!!!

Maybe. I always thought the key difference between MJ, Kobe and LeBron was LeBron's way to really pull his teammates up around him. Maybe I'm speaking as a JR fan (he's been damn near my favorite player since he debuted with the NO Hornets), but I would hope that the team and LeBron made sure he didn't feel too lonely last night.

The league is going to make excuse after excuse and back the refs. I actually would be much less irritated if they came out and said "we screwed up, but we are human". Trying to downplay it and say they were right calls is a slap in the face and only lends credence to a conspiracy theory.

That would probably be the right thing to do because they will need him going forward and he does have a habit of quitting when things aren't going well for him... but damn, under my moms premise of "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything".. I would have had a hard time talking to JR after that game.

Very true. I guess we'll never really know, at least not until a memoir is published. But, I'd like to think LeBron is the GOAT because he never takes the easy route. But yeah, that was easily the most deflating point of any of the Finals series for the team. The team just crumpled after that, it'll be interesting to see what they do for Game 2. Maybe a trip to an ax throwing venue is needed?

Also, if Love is suspended then the NBA is a joke. He tries to walk onto the floor during the dead ball, after his sub just got ejected and quickly walks off the floor during a scuffle.

I thought we played a great game, until - how shall I say - JR Smith made his presence known.

all i know is this: we can absolutely bang with the warriors. and while this loss is deflating, hopefully the team can rebound and get that mindset right, cause at the end of the day, we got whatever we wanted offensively.

I think going to Miami, then coming back only we got Kyrie and another number 1 pick is taking the easy route. J/s

I agree to an extent. Lets not forget the warriors last night shot the ball really bad minus the 3rd Q. I never seen them miss that many wide open shots. And they were getting a lot of wide open shots. That the only thing that I am worried about.

I am a huge lue fan first, before I say anything else. I really think he gets a bad rap around here.

But if I am lue, I am telling my guys, get a shot in anywhere you can in game 2. Espeically if love and TT are suspended - our chances of winning about 5% imo without those two. Make the warriors not want to come to game 3. If they don't, I will lose some respect for him, because was a travesty last night.

This - 100% agreed

I looked at facebook last night and again this morning, and saw several posts from different people that have no skin in the game calling out the refs.

3 calls in the 4th quarter that the announcers all said were bad, plus the charge/block...while I think it was a block, it should never have been looked at, as he wasn't close to being in the circle. that was 8 points, game over....

Though what the heck was JR thinking?

j/c

Just trying to put a positive spin on things here, but at least we showed we can hang with GS. We do have a chance. If we take one in GS and come home and keep playing the way we did last night we can go back to Oakland up 3 to 1 .

But I agree with the sentiment that the last two minutes of that game was an embarrassment to the NBA and I think I said to DC on FB. I want Perk to play one minute in game 2 and to knock Draymonds block off . I am sorry we can not let him get away with this [censored] any more . and if we do that ,maybe we will get lucky and they will suspend Ty Lue also .

I think he thought we were up by a point?

To have a chance like that in Oakland and blow it is really, really demoralizing. I mean, it was right there for the taking.

Basically, if the refs are going to treat us like that, we may as well forfeit playing. It's pointless. It's not even a case of making excuses either. We made other mistakes but the refs hurt us.

Clarkson, 1/8 or whatever he was, don't belong on the court anymore.

LBJ played almost the whole game including OT and was rewarded with nothing.

JR Smith, dude shouldn't even been able to sleep last night. How can you possibly fail that bad?

We played WAY better than I expected. Given it's GS and on the road to boot. It's just we technically should've won. A bad play not happening, a bad call not happening could've been the single difference and we'd be talking about victory today.

I always think a few bad calls are going to happen (both ways), but last night felt like too much.

Lebron STRIPPED Durant cleanly
Hill STRIPPED Durant cleanly
Hill got FOULED in the head in OT driving to the basket
The reversal

Those strips, Hill and LBJ, both looked cleaned to me.

That's because they were.