Hey Ref....YOU are NOT part of the show!!!
A brilliantly played Game Five in the NBA Finals was decided late in overtime not by a player or coach, but ultimately by some referee named Joe DeRosa. Ever hear of him? Me, neither.
You can be sure after his screwup the man will never, ever referee a Finals game again, no matter what spin the NBA puts on this in the coming days about how he made the correct calls. He F'ed up in a big way.
The scenario was this: Mavericks lead by one, Dwyane Wade with the ball for the Heat. He spins and drives to the basket, past two Mavericks and into the general direction of Dirk Nowitski. There is some contact by all three defenders, but enough to call a foul in the last few seconds of an NBA Finals game? No way, in my opinion. No way in the world. The foul was called on Diggler, who had the absolute least amount of contact with Wade.
That was bad enough; to make a touch call so late in the game. But things got worse for Dallas. Wade made the first to tie the game. Dallas Coach Avery Johnson signalled to his team on the court that he wanted a T called AFTER the second free throw, which would hav allowed the Mavs to out of bounds at midcourt. He did so by making the "T" signal then putting up two fingers (for the second free throw). Josh Howard signalled T back to Johnson for what couldn't have been more than a half second. No biggee.
But in comes Joe DeRosa, like Custer into battle. I think he may have been yelling at the top of his lungs "All is well....all is well!". Having seen Howard make a T with his hands, he decided to make what will go down as one of the biggest grandstanding moves in NBA officiating history: forcing Coach Johnson and his team to take the T they clearly didn't want until AFTER the second freebie by Wade. A T BEFORE the second made no sense.
Bennett Salvatore, a veteran and much respected ref, tried valiantly to do the right thing and spare the chump DeRosa much embarrassment. He signalled the players to remain on the court; that no T was coming.
But nooooooooooooo, DeRosa was gonna run with this blunder to the very end. He ran over to the scorers table, and that was that. The other two refs now had to back up their idiotic compadre. To do otherwise would have been seen as not supporting their coworker. Crawford after the game was quoted as saying "Howard goes to Joe DeRosa and not only once, but twice asks for a timeout. Forced to call it, simple as that."
What a load of crap. This is simply Crawford having his mates back. Howard didn't "go" to any of the three refs from the replay I saw. He simply made a T with his hands, once. And DeRosa decided he wanted to do something. Has he ever heard "less is more"? Has DeRosa ever been told that a good ref is anonymous, and that a well called game is one where no fan has any idea who officiated the game?
Here's SI.com's take on the calls.
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Now to the WayBack Machine: It was thirty summers ago that a similar scenario unfolded. Call me old (or O-L-D), but the first thing I thought of after the call by DeRosa was the Celtics v Suns triple overtime game in the Boston Garden in the early summer of 1976, often called "the greatest game ever played".
I don't remember which overtime it was, or even if it was at the end of regulation, but I clearly recall Paul Silas frantically signalling for a timeout to, I believe, the great ref Earl Strom with just a second or two left before the buzzer. Strom saw Silas, but he also knew that Boston had no Ts left. If he had acknowledged the request, the Celtics would have been hit with a technical and the Suns likely would have won to take a 3-2 series lead, with the possibilty of closing out their championship back in Pheonix two days later. Instead Strom ignored Silas, which may not have been by the book but was clearly the right thing to do, time expired and the C's went on the win a classic contest.
There are some Suns fans (and ex Suns players and coaches) who still bellyache over this sequence. But come on, no championhips should be decided by a ref making a questionable call. Refs should never, ever stand out. Strom made the right call by doing nothing.
And DeRosa made the incorrect call by grandstanding and following, I guess, the rulebook to the letter of the law. He screwed up
You can be sure after his screwup the man will never, ever referee a Finals game again, no matter what spin the NBA puts on this in the coming days about how he made the correct calls. He F'ed up in a big way.
The scenario was this: Mavericks lead by one, Dwyane Wade with the ball for the Heat. He spins and drives to the basket, past two Mavericks and into the general direction of Dirk Nowitski. There is some contact by all three defenders, but enough to call a foul in the last few seconds of an NBA Finals game? No way, in my opinion. No way in the world. The foul was called on Diggler, who had the absolute least amount of contact with Wade.
That was bad enough; to make a touch call so late in the game. But things got worse for Dallas. Wade made the first to tie the game. Dallas Coach Avery Johnson signalled to his team on the court that he wanted a T called AFTER the second free throw, which would hav allowed the Mavs to out of bounds at midcourt. He did so by making the "T" signal then putting up two fingers (for the second free throw). Josh Howard signalled T back to Johnson for what couldn't have been more than a half second. No biggee.
But in comes Joe DeRosa, like Custer into battle. I think he may have been yelling at the top of his lungs "All is well....all is well!". Having seen Howard make a T with his hands, he decided to make what will go down as one of the biggest grandstanding moves in NBA officiating history: forcing Coach Johnson and his team to take the T they clearly didn't want until AFTER the second freebie by Wade. A T BEFORE the second made no sense.
Bennett Salvatore, a veteran and much respected ref, tried valiantly to do the right thing and spare the chump DeRosa much embarrassment. He signalled the players to remain on the court; that no T was coming.
But nooooooooooooo, DeRosa was gonna run with this blunder to the very end. He ran over to the scorers table, and that was that. The other two refs now had to back up their idiotic compadre. To do otherwise would have been seen as not supporting their coworker. Crawford after the game was quoted as saying "Howard goes to Joe DeRosa and not only once, but twice asks for a timeout. Forced to call it, simple as that."
What a load of crap. This is simply Crawford having his mates back. Howard didn't "go" to any of the three refs from the replay I saw. He simply made a T with his hands, once. And DeRosa decided he wanted to do something. Has he ever heard "less is more"? Has DeRosa ever been told that a good ref is anonymous, and that a well called game is one where no fan has any idea who officiated the game?
Here's SI.com's take on the calls.
---------------------------------------------------------
Now to the WayBack Machine: It was thirty summers ago that a similar scenario unfolded. Call me old (or O-L-D), but the first thing I thought of after the call by DeRosa was the Celtics v Suns triple overtime game in the Boston Garden in the early summer of 1976, often called "the greatest game ever played".
I don't remember which overtime it was, or even if it was at the end of regulation, but I clearly recall Paul Silas frantically signalling for a timeout to, I believe, the great ref Earl Strom with just a second or two left before the buzzer. Strom saw Silas, but he also knew that Boston had no Ts left. If he had acknowledged the request, the Celtics would have been hit with a technical and the Suns likely would have won to take a 3-2 series lead, with the possibilty of closing out their championship back in Pheonix two days later. Instead Strom ignored Silas, which may not have been by the book but was clearly the right thing to do, time expired and the C's went on the win a classic contest.
There are some Suns fans (and ex Suns players and coaches) who still bellyache over this sequence. But come on, no championhips should be decided by a ref making a questionable call. Refs should never, ever stand out. Strom made the right call by doing nothing.
And DeRosa made the incorrect call by grandstanding and following, I guess, the rulebook to the letter of the law. He screwed up
posted by joe sweeney at 8:54 AM
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