Lakers beat Warriors in double overtime battle, but how about those refs?!
Lakers beat Warriors in double overtime battle, but how about those refs?!
I'M BLAMING THE ZEBRAS (mostly).
The Golden State Warriors lost 145-144 in a double overtime thriller in Chase Center. It was an instant classic, as in it was another war between Stephen Curry (46 scintillating points including a ultra clutch bomb he hit that was seconds away from being a game winner) and LeBron James (36 points, 20 rebounds, and 12 assists, with the game winning free throws after Curry’s heroics).
I could VERY WELL nitpick many things that the Warriors didn’t do right in the clutch. But there are some things that make you go hmmm from a judicial stand point.
Like they called a foul on Steph in the closing moments of the fourth quarter because Anthony Davis dropped an elbow in his neck…?
Did you know Steph only had three free throws last night in a DOUBLE OVERTIME GAME?!
What about the shotclock mysteriously resetting to 14 seconds from 5 seconds after Draymond blocked Davis in overtime?
Or how about LeBron traveling his way into those game winning free throws?
Nah man. HELL TO THE NAH NAH. I give the Warriors free abscondence (is that a word?) from this defeat and I am officially protesting this primetime defeat with the league.
I think Steph and Klay Thompson’s interviews after the game were two of the most sobering and also entertaining ones of their careers. The Splash Bros have seen it all done it all, and they did it for Dub Nation. Seeing them in their “damn I love playing basketball but I’m a grown man multimillionaire being forced to answer questions by a bunch of journalists using my pain for storylines, what time are dinner reservations anyway” phase of life is hilarious.
Crazy times. Wellp, I’m sure most of the Bay’s attention is shifting over to this NFC Championship game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Detroit Lions, but before that game starts I wanna ask you HQ: Did the refs cost the Dubs this primetime battle against the Lakers or am I just sadly coping because the Warriors just haven’t proven they are that good this year.
LET ME KNOW, HAPPY SUNDAY!
How I have come to think about NBA officiating in relation to our beloved Dubs. I can't really believe it's an actual conspiracy, and I also can't believe that in cases like last night my blue and gold goggles are sufficiently biasing my observations to account for what happened. So what gives?
NBA officials are trained with heuristics that allow them to officiate the game. They can't see all the fouls. So instead they look for common signs that mean a foul has likely been committed. None of this is particularly surprising or controversial.
Now, some players are known to be able to make plays that might look like fouls without fouling. Think of Andre stripping the ball. Steph does the same thing? It's a foul. Draymond actually gets a lot of leeway from officials defensively because he has a well-earned reputation for being an elite defender. Players then build a reputation with officials and this is entered into the officiating process. Again, NBA officials aren't super human and can't literally see fouls happening a lot of the time.
So we come into this game. The Warriors have a reputation for fouling uncontrollably (somewhat earned) and the Lakers have a reputation for not fouling (also somewhat earned). Every game we play against them, this reputation works in favor of the Lakers regardless of how much we are or are not fouling and how much the Lakers are or are not fouling. The only way we can benefit, ironically, is when officials swallow the whistle, because it erodes the edge the Lakers have in this regard. If there are a lot of fouls being called it's a guaranteed bad day for our guys. This disparity is a product of player and team reputation influencing officials as part of their process in inferring whether a foul happened or not, if the evidence is not clear and obvious in real time.
Steph Curry falls down. A lot. He falls down after layups. He falls down after three point shots. He's also unusually strong and doesn't flop. (Okay, he will stick his leg out on three pointers occasionally). It's hard for him to draw fouls without really running into guys, which elevates his risk of injury. He's bad at grifting and when he tries it almost always backfires. It's not really a game tailor-made for drawing free throws. The NBA has occasionally used him as the literal video example for rule reform in some of these ares, when he is by far not the worst offender, which is about the closest I can get to a conspiracy against anyone.
Can we earn a better reputation of defending without fouling? I think we can. Draymond back will help a lot, he immediately gives us a lot more credibility, and we're just actually better with him on the floor. Defenders are usually in the right place more often and play with more fire. If defenders are in the right position they're not reaching, they don't have to give up silly fouls. That way, when some calls go against us, it isn't piling on top of a bunch of self-inflicted wounds that also reinforce our perception as always fouling.
And then there will be some nights like last night. It was just bad. The refs missed a few calls on us, sure. But overwhelming the game was slanted against us by bad officiating. And this is where those self-inflicted wounds - the unforced live ball turnovers resulting in layups and dunks, for example - combined with unfair officiating end up in a - another - close, painful loss. In a season defined by close, painful losses.
I don't know if this helps anyone or even helps me, but it I guess does help me not descend into cray cray land where I think there's some conspiracy out to get the Dubs, which is tempting to think at times like these but in the end not credible.
One other nugget from last night; Steph's game wasn't as spectacularly efficient as a bunch of other games he's had, but his Win Probability Added (WPA) of 0.895 was the third-highest of his career based on my tracking, behind only "Bang! ....... BANG!!!" and behind a Sacramento win at Chase last year. Steph has, despite some notable bobbles, been spectacular in the 4th quarter and overtime this year, which gives me hope along with all of the close losses that we do have a chance of making a playoff run, assuming we can make the playoffs...
(WPA link for anyone interested: http://stats.inpredictable.com/nba/wpBox.php?season=2023&month=01&date=2024-01-27&gid=0022300650)