Thursday, May 22, 2008

Hilarious

One thing I've noticed this year in the playoffs is that announcers (save for maybe ESPN's lead team of Mark Jackson, Jeff Van Gundy, and Mike Breen) REFUSE to criticize the referees for anything. This, despite the fact that NBA officials are an abomination.

Tonight, Kobe Bryant employed a move in the third quarter that was clearly a travel, yet Doug Collins exclaimed, "Guard that!"

Well, you can't "guard that" - not when a guy is allowed to take six, yes SIX, steps. Watching in real time, you could see that Kobe, at the very least, took multiple steps and changed pivot feet. Watching in slow motion, his sequence was:

Left
Right
Right
Left
Right
Left

Yes, six steps in all. Yet no travel. Only a "guard that!" taunt from Doug Collins. Nice job by everyone. Real fine work at the highest levels.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you for saying that! OMy friends at work and I have been discussing the lack of criticisim from the broadcasters too. No matter what, how ridiculous the call is, they always seem to justify it in the replay. Do you think Stern sends out memos to TNT and ESPN?

Brandon said...

Look what happened to Jeff VanGundy after he had the gall to question the officials in the 2005 playoffs.

Does Stern have the ability to deny a network the rights to broadcast NBA games?

Anonymous said...

You don't happen to have youtube video of that six step'er do you?

Anonymous said...

Yeah, GO Lakers. Have you already forgotten how "generous" the officials are when calling Laker games? As a Portland fan.. you should know this...

Anonymous said...

Perhaps because Walton was fired for doing that...