Tag: Refs

Chiefs fans were absolutely furious at the refs after questionable calls led to a Bucs touchdown

It hasn’t been great.

The Kansas City Chiefs are no strangers to playing from behind in postseason games. Last year, they mounted double-digit comebacks in every game en route to the Super Bowl title. They’ve been in this situation before.

But Sunday’s Super Bowl LV matchup against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers had the Chiefs especially frustrated with the officiating. And for good reason.

The Buccaneers went into the locker room up 21-6 at halftime after a pair of defensive pass interference penalties set up an Antonio Brown touchdown just before half.

The first call — a 34-yard penalty — appeared to be incidental contact, at most, on a pass that Mike Evans wasn’t going to reach.

The second pass interference call occurred in the end zone on Tyrann Mathieu, which was a questionable penalty as well. Mathieu was visibly upset on the bench over the call.

The calls had Chiefs fans (and most viewers at home) upset with how involved the officials have made themselves in this game. The Bucs were only called for one penalty for five yards in the first half. The Chiefs, on the other hand, were called for eight penalties for 95 yards.

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On double-overtime, no-calls and the high road to a Game 7 win

The Boston Celtics reacted to the officiating — and the lack of it — in Game 6 in some very different ways.

“I just missed a layup, I guess.”

That was as much as anyone could get Boston Celtics star point guard Kemba Walker ot say about the officiating in Wednesday’s Game 6 loss to the Toronto Raptors.

In a game marred by questionable officiating at several points — ranging from probably-solid airspace fouls and players getting technicals for incidental contact with players behind them to egregious non-calls like the one Walker alluded to — one incident in particular stuck out.

Nick Nurse, on the court, in live-game action.

Boston All-Star swingman may have even passed to him, thinking it was a Celtic camped in the corner looking for the open shot.

“Yeah, I turned it over — that was my fault. I can’t blame Nick Nurse — he’s not playing,” graciously replied the rising star when asked about that sequence.

“I had no idea,” echoed head coach Brad Stevens. “I wasn’t paying as much attention to that; I’m just worried about when we can control.”

Asked if he’d had any thoughts about it the next day, and the Indiana native had even less to say.

“Nope.”

Outspoken as always — and crafted in a way to complain without the risk of incurring the fining capacity of the league for criticizing the officiating — likely the source of at least some of the other Celtics’ silence — Jaylen Brown had some very thinly-veiled criticism of the Toronto head coach.

“As a respectable organization I expect them to act accordingly,” he suggested when asked about related late-game chirping.

“Things seem to get out of hand at times from coaching staffs. Let’s keep it under control. Let’s keep playing basketball”

Pressed about that reply, Brown elaborated.

“I think a lot of emotions [are] very intense and things like that and sometimes things seem to go overboard at times,” he said.

“Let’s keep it in check, let’s keep it respectable. And let’s keep playing basketball. Grown men should be able to control themselves, especially coaching staff. So, let’s continue to do all we’ve got to do play basketball and be ready to fight.”

Stevens emphasized the importance of saying focused on what can be controlled as he often does, and as frustrating as this loss was, it’s probably the wisest move.

“You move on and control what you can control,” offered the Celtics coach.

“We’ve got to do better, obviously, and this number of possessions, but they were really playing … it was [a] great basketball game.”

Even with the officiating looking as bad as some fans often complaining about, there is a kernel of truth in the old adage that the team shouldn’t have let things get to that point in the first place.

Not that anyone wants to hear that today.

“Throw some ice on your legs,” said Stevens. “Get ready for Friday.”

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Seahawks (and Saints) fans were furious over blatant missed pass interference against 49ers

The Seahawks should have had first and goal on the 1-yard line, but the refs missed a blatant pass interference call against the 49ers.

The Seahawks were trailing the 49ers by five points on Sunday night, and driving with less than two minutes remaining in the fourth quarter. With the ball at the SF 12-yard line and 55 seconds remaining in the game, Russell Wilson fired a throw to tight end Jacob Hollister in the end zone.

Hollister was unable to even make an attempt to catch the ball, however, because 49ers linebacker Fred Warner mugged him in the end zone. Everyone waited for the flag to be thrown at Warner’s feet for pass interference, but nothing happened. No flag was thrown.

As there were fewer than two minutes remaining in the game, Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll was not allowed to challenge the call. HOWEVER, the league does have rules in place now where the league office can choose to review the play if they feel blatant PI occurred.

That … didn’t happen. For some reason. Seattle even called timeout after the play to give the league office time to review the decision, and … they didn’t. Nothing happened. Or they did quickly and decided not to do anything.

The call had massive repercussions. The Seahawks (thanks in part to some boneheaded coaching from Carroll) would go on to lose the game by five points.

That loss gave the 49ers the No. 1 seed in the NFC, and knocked the Saints out of a first-round bye in the process.

So now you had furious Seahawks fans, AND furious Saints fans who felt that had been cheated by another terrible, missed pass interference call.

As to how bad the call was? Well, yeah, it was pretty bad.

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Draymond Green accused the Blazers of ‘cheating the game,’ but he should be mad at the refs

Draymond Green was (correctly) called out for taking too long to sub into Warriors-Blazers, and then tried to make it about the Blazers.

Draymond Green attempted to sub into the Warriors-Blazers game on Wednesday, with 5:22 remaining in the fourth quarter. He went to the scorer’s table, and then took his time.

He was still in his warmups. He had heating pads on his knees. After 13 seconds, Trail Blazers assistant coach Jim Moran yelled to referees: “Hey, how much time does he get? How much time does he get?”

The refs understood the question, and put the kibosh on the substitution. Green would have to wait until the next opportunity to check into the game. That was nearly a minute later — Green eventually subbed in for Omari Spellman with 4:35 left in the game.

Green was apoplectic, and continued to be apoplectic after the game, which the Warriors lost, 122-112. Green accused the Blazers of “cheating the game” by asking refs for a delay of game call.

The Blazers didn’t cheat, though. They just asked the rules to be enforced. The NBA is desperately trying to improve its in-game product, and a common complaint from NBA fans is that fourth quarters can get so bogged down in timeouts, substitutions, and free throws, it makes it tough to watch.

So they put a limit on things. Yahoo pulled the rule:

RULE NO 3: Players, Substitutes and Coaches Section 5, article C: A substitute must be ready to enter the game when beckoned. No delays for removal of warm-up clothing will be permitted.

Pretty cut and dry. Green was in warm-ups and wearing heating pads on his knees. He wasn’t ready to enter the game.

So now, the Blazers didn’t cheat anything. They asked the rule to be enforced, and it was.

Where Green has a point, however, is that opposing coaches and players seem to be awfully particular about when they’re calling out these rule violations. The Blazers waited until the fourth quarter of a close game — the score was 107-102 at the time — to demand the rule be called.

It reminds me of Chris Paul calling out Jordan Bell for having his jersey untucked in a game between the Thunder and the Timberwolves, which he did with … 1.1 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter of a three-point game.

Paul, like the Blazers assistant, was correct about the rule. However, refs have to have some discretion here. Paul hadn’t cared much about jerseys being tucked in or out until a second remained in the fourth quarter. The Blazers coaches weren’t counting off seconds on substitutions until one of the Warriors’ best players tried to check in to a tight game in the fourth.

Green was mad at the Blazers … but he should be mad at the refs.

If the rules are there, the refs need to enforce them from the start of the game. And if the refs aren’t enforcing them all game, they can’t just suddenly start enforcing them when an opponent realizes it would be hugely in his team’s favor for the rule to be called.

The refs might look bad, but I’d argue they have to swallow the whistle there. You can’t change how you’re calling a game when one team decides it. Then you’re not calling the game; they are.

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