Directly influencing the outcome when they aren’t supposed to.
The Dallas Mavericks defeated the Phoenix Suns 111-101 in Game 4 on Sunday due to 3-point shooting, and an intervention from the officials.
Phoenix Suns All-Star point guard Chris Paul fouled out. This happens almost as frequently as a global pandemic.
Chris Paul has played in 139 career NBA playoff games, and fouled out of three of them.
The series is tied at 2, and returns to Phoenix on Tuesday night for Game 5.
The Suns without Paul are like the Mavs without Luka Doncic.
The referees lost control of Sunday’s game long before the game started.
They are also not the reason the Mavericks won. They did, however, help.
The Mavs made 20-of-44 of their 3-pointers; Dorian Finney-Smith finally showed up in this series as he made 8-of-12 3-pointers and finished with 24 points.
Technically Paul did play on Sunday, but the refs put him on the bench.
Do not expect to see this sort of thing to happen again in any of the remaining three games of this series.
Expect more erratic officiating.
Refs are part of the fabric of the NBA, and specifically an NBA playoff series.
They’re in the way, will screw it up, and influence the outcomes.
Mark Cuban tried like hell to fix it, but not much has changed.
"Too little, too late, too unbothered."
- Phoenix Suns 2023-2024 season motto.
"When we all think alike, nobody is thinking" - Walter Lippmann "Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them." ~ Frederick Douglass
SMH. "unwanted hugs". Or in other words, "it's just a joke, bro". FOH jackass.
so pathetic. I am doubting the Paul's would describe it as "unwanted hugs" and this statement isn't very clear if it is a ban until the year 2023 or the 2023 season. So it could literally be a ban of 1 game.
I missed hearing that from Kenny today. Really puts a different perspective on the "unwanted hugs" claim, not that anyone besides Mavs homers believe that anyway.
Send me a PM if you're interested in joining the phx-suns.net fantasy basketball league.
^ Nice JaVale article, but, he has struggled in this series. I wonder if we should sometimes be going smaller by playing Wainwright or Craig more. Or even smaller with, gasp, Shamet.
These numbers are so hard to fathom
Yes the bench is an issue but the way DA been all season then against Pels, we all know CP3 work - their stats have me beat
I wonder how players gonna be after this series is over
With the Pels there was plenty of chirping but afterwards everyone dapped up and Suns acknowledged the "upstart" Pelicans gave them a run
It's always said that during a 7 game series there is a point when teams just don't like each other, tired of seeing one another and so on. Idk, I feel like this is one where they will be few handshakes cause guys genuinely don't like one another
It's also funny how we labeled as these front runners and ppl don't seem to think or realize the Mavs especially Luka geeez....
Behaving the exact same way
Luka really reaaally likes that shot and I'm always cool when he takes it cause for me more often than not it isn't a quality shot. He had it going a bit in the first two games and we were contesting it but since then I feel like his % is super low.
Just our D against the others in Dallas allowed his inefficiency to slide under the radar
I missed the Chriss-Biyombo stuff at the end of the game and just watched it...TBH Payne should've just gotten the ball over halfcourt and dribbled out the last 8 seconds. No need for the other stuff, especially with the Mavs pissed at being down 30. Just not a good look IMO.
Apologies to all
I said in the Game Day thread that the ball handler got trapped and found Biz as an outlet. That's how I remembered it at the time smh lol
Ntilikina was still trying to steal the ball to be fair but is what it is
I'm just listening to Biz and man, we would never know for sure but it's really obvious that Marquese definitely would not be about that life lol