July 28, 2007

Foul Chart

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Right off, I have to admit that I have no idea what happened to the two extra fouls (one on each team) and the two free throws missing from the Suns' total. I have looked for them as much as I can be bothered, but as I have mentioned several times, this was a TEDIOUS task. My eyes are swollen and itchy from zooming in too closely on a 15.4" LCD screen. At this point, though, I don't think that the missing statistics are relevant to the big picture. Attributing them to Donaghy does nothing to further any potential incrimination, and giving them to one or both of the other two officials would do nothing to deflect suspicion from Donaghy's foul calls.

In sum, the numbers are close enough for my purposes, which was to find any discrepancies that might be interpreted as biased foul calling on Tim Donaghy's part.

I could probably break this numbers down to say anything I want against Donaghy, but the fact of the matter is that he was almost non-existent throughout the majority of the game. He was most active in the second quarter, calling 6 fouls (4 on Phoenix, 2 on San Antonio), which equalled the number of fouls called by Willard and Rush combined in the quarter.

Perhaps not coincidentally, this was the quarter that the Suns began to pull away, leading by as many as 11, until two crucial calls from Donaghy. The the first call from Donaghy in the quarter (his third of the game, his only one on Amare) was Amare Stoudemire's second foul, an either-way foul that Jon Barry termed "a young foul". The second was the infamous late whistle that came from Donaghy a full two seconds after the play, as well as from half court, the furthest official from the play.

The Spurs finished that quarter on a 28-17 run, leading by two points going into half time. The total score at this point was 108, more than half way to the Vegas over/under line. During that quarter, Donaghy awarded 7 free throws to San Antonio, compared to the two he awarded to Phoenix.

Things turned strange in the third quarter, a period marred by several non-calls against the Spurs, mostly three second violations and Bowen's antics against Nash. Donaghy disappeared in the third, as well, calling only two fouls on San Antonio, and awarding Phoenix a mere 3 free throws.

Then we get to the fourth quarter, which San Antonio led wire to wire, with Phoenix never getting closer than 6 points (twice). Again, Donaghy was strangely absent, calling only 3 fouls total, and awarding 3 free throws between the two teams. Compare that with the 8 free throws a piece awarded by Willard and Rush. I will note, though, that all 8 of Willard's free throws went to San Antonio.

In the end, I see no big complete game discrepancy between what Donaghy called and what Rush called. The game as a whole is not so much evidence that Donaghy was on the take, but more an indictment of the horrid state of the officiating in the NBA today, regardless of gambling. By my count, Greg Willard, for the game, called 9 fouls on Phoenix and 6 on San Antonio. That's a reasonable disparity, until you consider that he awarded San Antonio three times as many free throw opportunities, allowing the Spurs to shoot 15 free throws to the Suns' 5, compliments of Willard.

Despite Rush's fourth quarter blindness, he called the most even game, handing 8 fouls to each team, and awarding Phoenix two more free throw attempts. This is comparable to Donaghy's final numbers, which give San Antonio one more foul and three more free throws (curiously inverted to what would be expected).

To be fair, eight of Willard's 15 free throws for the Spurs came in the fourth quarter, Donaghy's most conspicuously silent quarter.

I don't think anyone can deny that game three between the Suns and Spurs was the most atrociously officiated game in NBA playoff history. Not just the number of missed calls, but that all but two of them favored the Spurs is an indication that the referees do indeed interpret the rules differently depending on the team. I counted no less than six times a Spurs player standing inside the lane while his man was outside the three point line. In elementary school we called it "baby guarding the basket", and it was against the rules then, too. There is also the matter of what has been termed "physical defense", which for some teams means hard intentional fouls at the rim, and for others means quick hacks at a driver's arms. The Suns don't know from physical defense, so it's surprising that they were called for so many shooting fouls.

As an indictment of Tim Donaghy, the best evidence is the second quarter. He came alive just in time to stem a Suns momentum swing and allow the Spurs to regain control. I didn't note a single moment after the first quarter that the game was in danger of missing the over, not with the Suns averaging 24 points per quarter and the Spurs averaging 27 points. If the game cut close, then there was always room to call fouls later in the game. For the record, the over/under was beat at 1:51 in the fourth, when Tony Parker scored on a drive to push the score to 106-95 in favor of San Antonio -- 201 points for the mathematically challenged.

Oddly, though, most of those fourth quarter fouls came from the whistle of Greg Willard. Donaghy's contribution of three fouls total for the quarter hardly seem enough to push the score upward, especially considering that they weren't even timely calls. No, if Donaghy was working the spread or the over/under, he did it in the second quarter with a very timely slew of foul calls and a disproportionate number of free throws to San Antonio that not only killed Phoenix's momentum, but gave the Spurs the lead going into half time.

So whether or not this game proves to be an example of a fixed game is irrelevant at this point. Suns fans cried foul (pardon) when the game was going on, and even the media knew something wasn't right. Yet Stern continued to ignore the pleas of NBA fans everywhere right through the suspensions, and right until the news of Tim Donaghy broke. Now he has no choice but to look at that game very closely. No doubt he will draw similar conclusions to mine - ultimately, there is no conclusive proof that Donaghy inappropriately influenced this game, yet there are still numerous questionable calls and non-calls that are incongruous with good basketball.

Stern has to look closely at this game, and any game like it, and realize that his officials tend to be lazy, arrogant, and incompetent in big situations. The game may not have been fixed, but the officiating was bad enough that it may as well have been. God forbid I ever have to watch that game again.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

First, some house-keeping notes on your conclusions: the disparity in freethrows in the second quarter is far more troubling than that in the final quarter (which is the logical result of San Antonio defending a large lead, and presumably being sent to the line to slow the game down as it approaches the final minutes, as well as 'desparation' or 'frustration' fouls prior to that point). You see this effect in football (American) on any level- the team with the lead going into the final quarter will end up with more rushing yardage the majority of the time, and the team that is losing will tend to throw more incompletions and interceptions (as a result of taking more risks).

The concept of "baby-guarding the basket" is known in most basketball circles as help-side defense and is the correct, fundamental way to play on the opposite side of the court from the ball. The NBA made it illegal because they think we wouldn't want to watch a team actually have to work for points in the paint- instant gratification is the name of the game. If Kobe and Lebron can score at will when they get in the lane, well we can sell that.

The NBA chooses to market individual players rather than teams, and so status is decided by who has the best stats and who makes the most money. Is it any wonder then that the referees A) are, without a shadow of a doubt, the least consistent officials in ANY professional sport in the USA; B) do not call plays cleanly or fairly among players of different status and marketability; C) tend to upstage players by making big, game-changing calls when (as a poster on another site said) 'the best officials should be invisible'; D) are vulnerable to greed, corruption, and exploitation by the world of organized crime?

The root of the problem with the NBA is that it doesn't give fans enough credit- it believes that they will never be able to appreciate the subleties of a pure form of the sport and so they change the sport into whatever they can market most easily. Basketball, like any sport (think of soccer, baseball, hockey especially here), can be a sort of art when played well in its purest form.

My sincerest hope about this ref scandal is that the NBA realizes that it has to do damage control and hang onto the die-hard fans by getting back to a more pure form of basketball, with real, live, competent referees. I have watched 7th grade basketball games that are so well-coached that they are more fun to watch than some of the NBA games this past season. And not just the Celtics and Bucks, either.

Elias Butler said...

My hat's off to ya mate for your endurance in compiling these stats before anyone else in the media.

Conclusions are damning for the refs and Stern - can it be possible that professionals are really THAT incompetent during such an important game? The numbers prove, yes.

Now all Donaghy needs to do is name some cohorts and we'll really see some changes next season.

Anyone want to bet on who's involved?

Anonymous said...

I read somewhere that the total number of fouls from refs are looked at, and refs who have an unusually high or low number fouls are audited, as it were. So I guess refs are typically conscious of if their foul total is near the average or not.

If Donaghy really was trying to fix the game, he would have had to have been careful to make the right calls at crucial moments, but make sure his total # of fouls didn't get too large. And if another ref was doing the work of calling fouls that would put the score high enough, then he could afford to be careful about adding his own.

I'm not saying this is the case, just speculating

Anonymous said...

It seems to me that Donaghy wanted it to seem like that he wasn't fixing the game, so he only started calling excess PHX fouls when the Suns were on a run or if they had the momentum.

Jey said...

Thanks guys. It's nice to see some thought out comments on this one.

I do have two corrections for Joe. Baby guarding the basket used to be an illegal defense, now it has changed to the defensive three second call. A player cannot have a foot in the lane for more than three seconds, unless he is guarding an offensive player with the ball.

The second thing is, the second quarter is the one I'm really concerned about. My bias tells me that the Willard free throw parade was a direct result of Donaghy being out of so many plays, putting his colleague in position to make most of the crucial calls.

But since I don't know anything about detecting scoring anomolies in single games, I can't really draw any conclusions concerning Donaghy's alleged involvement in game fixing. All I can say is that the second quarter looks really bad for him, and the game as a whole looks really bad for all officials in the league.

All I ever want is an evenly called game, by the rules. I'm tired of accepting bad officiating simply on the grounds of consistency.

"Basketball, like any sport (think of soccer, baseball, hockey especially here), can be a sort of art when played well in its purest form."

Amen. That's why I love watching the Suns. Tis a beautiful thing.

AllanK said...

Jey,
Thanks for your diligent and evenhanded approach to this foul business. Ever think of becoming an NBA ref?

Anonymous said...

A ref doesn't have to make a lot of calls to throw a game. He just has to make calls that will take a player out of his game, like calling two fouls on Amare in the first five minutes of that game. One was said to be justified, the other one was ridiculous according to those who know about such things. Amare played 21 minutes in that game and the two fouls in the first five minutes is what caused it.

Jey said...

HA! If I ever became an NBA ref, the Suns would never lose a game I worked. The truth is, though, that I'd never pass the background check. I owe too much money. lol

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