Ahh, Basketball. Yuck. I was a fan, and now I am not.

I'm a whiner. I hate the refs. I... Ok, lets just say I wanted Kobe to lose... The last game of 2010 caused me deep psychological bruises.

WHere to start. First, lets just say based on play, the Lakers deserved to win this game. I spent minutes in shock at our inability to make the simplest plays. And for most of the game the Lakers were in the same boat. But they had a strong streak, and we answered with a whimper, and..

But a deeper part of me is tortured over the fact that this series was the Celtics'. We out toughed the Lakers, and in alot of stretches, outplayed them.

But I swear the bean counters at the NBA wanted to even out the series. And this lead to the ugliest bit of both basketball and refereeing. I was in totaly shock in game 2. The shock lasted somewhat until game 6 (It really does help when you end up winning), and by game 7, I was more pissed at our lack of offense than at the refs.

But I simmer. The game itself was ugly. It was slow. It was arbitrary. It was violent. And the refs made it that way. It got so bad, that during game 6 I turned down the volume because the announcers were totally annoying me. They can be so mindless. Every once in a while, Jeff Van Gundy would blurt out the truth. But 5 minutes later, new stats would come out for them to talk about, and.. Yuck.

I called it after game 5. I had this sense that the refs were tweaking the game. Nothing that a great shooting night can't overcome, but enough to affect the game. But the thing I had worried about was the celtics losing game 6, and then even when the refs, having gotten what they wanted (game 7) started to play fair, we would have a bad shooting night and lose.

How about a bad shooting night, cringe worthy arbitrariness, the same ugly violent tone of the game, all adding up to a loss by the C's.

For the future, I'm swearing off the NBA. Probably a good thing for a bostonian, since we have alot of old people on our team, and it is definitely all uphill from here.

But I can't imagine ever watching an NBA game again until they tighten up the rules and have them make sense. A player jumping into the body of another player: why does this draw a foul? If anything, it should be a foul on the jumper (either offensive or defensive). Hands on the body of a player? Why is this allowed? Over the back calls: Where did they go? That stupid semicircle under the basket? Even if you don't call an offensive foul when someone receives a charge there, why is it a blocking foul? In most cases, it should be a no call. Get rid of 'act of shooting' distinctions, including the horrible 'continuation'. Just have a very narrow 'in the middle of a shooting stroke'. I realized this will hurt Paul Pierce (still love ya Paul), but it will take away the arbitraryness. Make fouls unlimited. You heard me. Foul shooting and ball handling will become a much bigger part of the game. Of course *do* make a distinction between a basketball act (going for the ball) and a non-basketball act (a deliberate foul). A T is good enough for that. Eliminate double T's -- just call the first foul you see.

Anyway, The game is flawed, and the ugliness of this particular series has totally turned me away.

Ger.

Comments

[Supra Shoes For Girl]

I would imagine there are also those who want to trade the currency at a profit (you'd have to be pretty nerdy and obsessed to do this on this toy exchange, but you do find some people interested in that) who are deliberately parking low-priced packets to see how they move and then jumping in with more.

One thing to remember with markets is to take the long view. This period when the Lindens cut their forces by 30 percent and haven't explasdfined yet what they intend to do with the burnt-out shell of the Viewer 2 marketing expedition is bad -- but it's NOTHING like the absolute desert of 2005,