Official Game Thread: Hawks at Timberwolves

[Gray Mule]

Something I observed in last night's game and it worries me.  Trae enters the game. late in the 4th quarter.  Hawks have a 8 point lead.  Quiet suddenly, or so it seems, the wolves have a 4 point lead.

Hawks missed only three free throws.  Lost the game by one point.

How did we lose our challenge and lose our time out?  We needed another challenge on that final play.  We need to file an objection about this final play.  The call was missed.  Make the teams go back and see if Bey can tie the game with one or win the game with two.

Officials are only human.  They all make mistakes.  Sometimes, like last night, the errors seem to go to one side a lot more than the other side.  Squawk posters complain a lot when we lose.  As close as this game was, the thumb on the scale of justice tilted it just enough for a Wolf victory.

Sometimes we gripe about how bad we play in a terrible loss.  I hail this Hawk team for the battle that they put up last night, on a second game of a back to back, on our opponent's home floor and with their all star returning after a long absence.  He had a great game.  Too bad about the officials giving him the win.

[REHawksFan]

1 hour ago, BrazilianHawk said:

Our star has to make it himself so he can be lauded for his efforts in tight games. 

Your agenda clouds your judgment. Trae had 2 FGA in the 4th quarter. 

[Diesel]

8 hours ago, JayBirdHawk said:

Retroactive technical and fine incoming.

Doubtful. 

Maybe just a fine for saying the refs have been paid off. 

 

[Diesel]

5 minutes ago, Gray Mule said:

We need to file an objection about this final play.  The call was missed.  Make the teams go back and see if Bey can tie the game with one or win the game with two.

Shaq did it to us one year.   But that was SHaq.  We're in a playoff/playin race, I think the results warrant a replay.  Especially with a ref admitting that they missed the call. 

[TheNorthCydeRises]

1 minute ago, Gray Mule said:

Something I observed in last night's game and it worries me.  Trae enters the game. late in the 4th quarter.  Hawks have a 8 point lead.  Quiet suddenly, or so it seems, the wolves have a 4 point lead.

Hawks missed only three free throws.  Lost the game by one point.

How did we lose our challenge and lose our time out?  We needed another challenge on that final play.  We need to file an objection about this final play.  The call was missed.  Make the teams go back and see if Bey can tie the game with one or win the game with two.

Officials are only human.  They all make mistakes.  Sometimes, like last night, the errors seem to go to one side a lot more than the other side.  Squawk posters complain a lot when we lose.  As close as this game was, the thumb on the scale of justice tilted it just enough for a Wolf victory.

Sometimes we gripe about how bad we play in a terrible loss.  I hail this Hawk team for the battle that they put up last night, on a second game of a back to back, on our opponent's home floor and with their all star returning after a long absence.  He had a great game.  Too bad about the officials giving him the win.

 

But they also had no Anthony Edwards on the floor.  And Minnesota did something that teams RARELY do.  They specifically attacked Trae on defense in the 4th.  And they were successful in doing this by playing a big lineup w/o Mike Conley in the game when they made their big run.  They basically had Kyle Anderson handling the ball, with tall wings and 2 big men on the floor.

Naz Reid killed us in the 4th.  His ability to be KAT-lite on the floor, as a big man that shoots 3s, had us out of position a few times.  Dre, Capela, and Collins lost him when they started their run, and he made a 3, with only Trae running out at him to contest.

The big lineup forced Trae to guard Taurean Prince, who attacked Trae on a drive and got an And-1.  Trae got him back late in the game with a beautiful steal.

McDaniels attacks Trae on the baseline. Trae sets up to take a charge that wasn't called.  Capela came to help, and Gobert got the miss and a dunk, while Collins and Dre just drifted into the paint just watching.

Prince attacks Trae off the dribble and gets into the lane.  Capela comes to help. But Prince slips a nice pass to Gobert under the basket for a dunk

Conley comes back in late, gets Trae in the pick and roll with Gobert.  Gobert's screen is solid enough to free Conley for a wide open 3, because Capela is in drop coverage, protecting against a pass to Gobert for a dunk.

 

Even with all of that, we get the lead, and had a chance to ice the game if Bogi makes that 3.  But he missed, and we "fouled" KAT at the end.  Then Dre shoots a comet off the backboard.  And Bey doesn't get a foul call at the end on the put back.

[macdaddy]

Thoughts on the game:

1. what a joke the NBA is.  What's the point of challenges if this is the deal.

2. The Bey foul I care less about than the egregious KAT offensive foul.  Only reason refs are admitting they missed the Bey foul is to take attention away from the fact that they went to replay and were too scared to make the right call. 

3. So glad we aren't paying Gobert $40 million

4. Could we possibly have drawn up a play for our best shooter Bogi to get a shot at the end?  Dude was covered by Conley for crying out loud.  He could just shoot over him with ease.  Instead he's parked on the other side of the court and Hunter air mails a 3. 

[lethalweapon3]

Sounds About Hawks.

(Update from last night: We moved "past" the Pistons!)

https://www.nba.com/stats/teams/clutch-advanced?dir=D&sort=NET_RATING

~lw3

[kg01]

1 hour ago, deester11 said:

I'm not a.."the refs screwed us" type of guy, but that game was so hard to watch.  I've seen AAU games officiated this way and it absolutely causes the outcome to be in doubt.  The Hawk's do a good job of screwing themselves over without the refs help.  That JC call...Smh.  Can anyone tell me WTH the relay booth actually does?

Easy.  They are there to find justification for the call that was made, but overturn a few so it doesn't look as obvious as we know it is.

I'd be shocked if the refs don't track the percentage of overturned calls and collude to make sure it doesn't exceed a certain amount.

And the smug admittance to botching the foul on Bey is the cherry on top.  They know it absolutely doesn't matter.  And they know there's nothing the league will allow us to do about it.  

[kg01]

10 minutes ago, macdaddy said:

Thoughts on the game:

1. what a joke the NBA is.  What's the point of challenges if this is the deal.

2. The Bey foul I care less about than the egregious KAT offensive foul.  Only reason refs are admitting they missed the Bey foul is to take attention away from the fact that they went to replay and were too scared to make the right call. 

3. So glad we aren't paying Gobert $40 million

4. Could we possibly have drawn up a play for our best shooter Bogi to get a shot at the end?  Dude was covered by Conley for crying out loud.  He could just shoot over him with ease.  Instead he's parked on the other side of the court and Hunter air mails a 3. 

Agree on all counts.

The acknowledgement of the Bey foul is the equivalent of waiving a hand in our face while the Towns foul lifts our wallet.

[AHF]

Only thing I’ll say in the league’s defense is you can’t have games replayed based on bad calls.  The Shaq / Miami precedent was a mistake by them and surely influenced by the fact that it was the big Heat and lowly Hawks.

That game was embarrassing for the league and infuriating for us.  The self inflicted damage still annoys.  This is just such a frustrating team.

[sturt]

8 minutes ago, AHF said:

Only thing I’ll say in the league’s defense is you can’t have games replayed based on bad calls.

The question becomes what can you do, though.

What are the possibilities one should be willing to consider to rebalance the unbalance.

If replaying an entire game is too radical, what's short of "too" radical that would still be adequate to resolve things.

[BrazilianHawk]

1 hour ago, REHawksFan said:

Your agenda clouds your judgment. Trae had 2 FGA in the 4th quarter. 

Yes, 2 FGA and what, 2 assists and 3 turnovers? And some foul baits. That's great efficiency for your superstar, no doubt.

 

MY agenda? IIRC, you were the one that said the Hawks lost the game when Quin took OO out of the game. It's VERY convenient to forget that that was the exact time when he put your superstar back in... Your superstar can do no wrong, can he? Even if he was by far the worst player in +/- terms... So whose agenda is it now? 

[BrazilianHawk]

1 hour ago, Diesel said:

Shaq did it to us one year.   But that was SHaq.  We're in a playoff/playin race, I think the results warrant a replay.  Especially with a ref admitting that they missed the call. 

That would be the right thing to do, yes. Alas, we're the Hawks.

[BrazilianHawk]

48 minutes ago, lethalweapon3 said:

Sounds About Hawks.

(Update from last night: We moved "past" the Pistons!)

https://www.nba.com/stats/teams/clutch-advanced?dir=D&sort=NET_RATING

~lw3

I wonder why we're so bad in these situations?... 

[AHF]

16 minutes ago, sturt said:

The question becomes what can you do, though.

What are the possibilities one should be willing to consider to rebalance the unbalance.

If replaying an entire game is too radical, what's short of "too" radical that would still be adequate to resolve things.

Step 1 - Get the call right.  

Step 2 - Replay / review needs to get it right.

Step 3 - Refs should be counseled / disciplined based on the issue.

Bad calls are going to happen and some games with be replete with them.  It has been like that in every era of the NBA.  Some franchises and stars get better treatment in every era.  If replay of games becomes a thing, I would expect it to be abused in the same way where the Miamis of the world get the replay and the Atlanta’s don’t just like who gets the calls down the stretch.  The other practical reality is that basketball is a tough sport to ref and mistakes will be made every game so making it a part of the normal cadence to replay games with egregious errors just can’t happen in a sport with an 82 game season, imo.  (IMO, there is an egregious missed call or more almost every night of the season.)

From a big picture point of view, I’d be looking for every opportunity to eliminate human refs and move to automated systems like tennis or soccer have effectively done for certain calls.  I have more faith in those systems not getting hacked than I do in human refs being fair and competent.  The technology will continue to be capable of more and more over time and should be utilized when it is ready.

[REHawksFan]

3 minutes ago, BrazilianHawk said:

Yes, 2 FGA and what, 2 assists and 3 turnovers? And some foul baits. That's great efficiency for your superstar, no doubt.

 

MY agenda? IIRC, you were the one that said the Hawks lost the game when Quin took OO out of the game. It's VERY convenient to forget that that was the exact time when he put your superstar back in... Your superstar can do no wrong, can he? Even if he was by far the worst player in +/- terms... So whose agenda is it now? 

It's most definitely YOUR agenda.  You literally said Trae has to take all the shots himself to get lauded for it.  He took 2.  Case closed.  

The TOs were killer, no doubt.  He can't have those.  Doesn't change the fact that you can't see past your agenda against Trae to see that he was passing the ball to his teammates (which is exactly what caused 2 of the 3 TOs). Bogie took 6 shots in the 4th. Bey took 4. Hunter took 3. OO took 3.  Trae took 2.  

It's really convenient when you can bag on him for TOs which were a product of passing to teammates while also bagging on him for taking all the shots.  Which is it?  You are going to bag on him whether he keeps it and shoots or he passes it and ends up with a couple of TOs.  Like I said, your agenda. Convenient. 

And yes, the game turned when OO went out.  Minny scored 9 of their 11 buckets AT THE RIM in the 4th.  And 7 of those came after OO went out of the game.  And they were by Naz Reid and Rudy Gobert on dunks and layups. The's the loss of OO.  

 

[macdaddy]

In other news, who was the biggest complainer last night to the refs?   Trae, KAT, JC, McDaniels?   

[REHawksFan]

4 minutes ago, macdaddy said:

In other news, who was the biggest complainer last night to the refs?   Trae, KAT, JC, McDaniels?   

The refs were horrible obviously.  I felt like they were horrible in our favor at times and in Minny's favor at times. Unfortunately, it was in their favor at the end.  And that's that.  

I'm still not sure how Dre has 3.0 sec to shoot and doesn't draw iron.  

[AHF]

MODERATOR NOTE:

Drop the “agenda” accusations here guys.  You can make the argument that Trae ball-hogged or distributed first in the 4th without any reference to someone having an agenda.  That just gets in the way of the actual discussion and makes things a personal attack.

(Edit:  I feel like explaining the last comment would be useful.  When you say someone has an agenda as opposed to an opinion that implies they are unreasonable on the issue and willing to disregard facts in order to promote that agenda.  As such, most people understand saying another poster has an agenda to at least imply that said poster is not based in reality and that their post on this should be disregarded as unreasonable and biased due to that agenda.  Thus framing someone else’s view as an agenda is a personal attack.  Not the worst of its kind but it distracts from The kind of discussion we aim to have on the site.)

[djjob23]

31 minutes ago, AHF said:

Step 1 - Get the call right.  

Step 2 - Replay / review needs to get it right.

Step 3 - Refs should be counseled / disciplined based on the issue.

Bad calls are going to happen and some games with be replete with them.  It has been like that in every era of the NBA.  Some franchises and stars get better treatment in every era.  If replay of games becomes a thing, I would expect it to be abused in the same way where the Miamis of the world get the replay and the Atlanta’s don’t just like who gets the calls down the stretch.  The other practical reality is that basketball is a tough sport to ref and mistakes will be made every game so making it a part of the normal cadence to replay games with egregious errors just can’t happen in a sport with an 82 game season, imo.  (IMO, there is an egregious missed call or more almost every night of the season.)

From a big picture point of view, I’d be looking for every opportunity to eliminate human refs and move to automated systems like tennis or soccer have effectively done for certain calls.  I have more faith in those systems not getting hacked than I do in human refs being fair and competent.  The technology will continue to be capable of more and more over time and should be utilized when it is ready.

Couldn’t agree more! Curious to see the Last 2 Minute Report of this game when it comes out, but doubt it’ll bring any real change. Here’s a link to where it’ll be posted:

https://official.nba.com/2022-23-nba-officiating-last-two-minute-reports/

Honestly, you wouldn’t have a student grade their own work. Yes refs are human, but the system needs radical changes to make the games more fair and transparent.

I’m all for a non-biased 3rd party that isn’t connected to the NBA and is not financially benefited by the results of games to start publicly auditing full games. Force the NBA’s hand to bring the purity of the sport back.

That is until AI is ready to take over. Wonder if hacking could be minimized if the code/settings for games are recorded and transparent so any changes/hacks to the AI would be easily identifiable. Regardless, hacking would at least be more controllable than the current human biases/error refs have today.

Edited March 23, 2023 by djjob23