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shock6666
Joined: 18 Nov 2004
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Location: Ann Arbor, MI
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Slovydal
Joined: 17 Nov 2004
Posts: 12205
Location: Indianapolis, IN
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 Posted: 05/24/06 6:52 am ::: |
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One of the officials in that game clearly had an agenda against Anna DeForge. There were bad calls on both teams.
Early in the game there were a couple of [good] no-calls that most officials would have called on Shock players.
It could have been a lot worse, Bill.
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mikey87
Joined: 29 Oct 2005
Posts: 2165
Location: In My Crib..
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| Posted: 05/24/06 7:20 am ::: |
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| How can the SHOCK complain about bad calls, when they are the ones who play dirty. Well now maybe the REFS are paying more attention to them.
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smenko
Joined: 18 Nov 2004
Posts: 4081
Location: metro detroit
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| Posted: 05/24/06 8:08 am ::: |
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| According to the Oakland Press (which keeps itself under tight security lest someone would actually want to read the paper online) Laimbeer flew out of Indy with one of the refs. They did not say what was said between them if anything. There is irony in that somewhere.
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ShockPR
Joined: 23 May 2005
Posts: 1095
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| Posted: 05/24/06 8:21 am ::: |
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2003 FTA - Diff.
Det...882
Opp...556
DIF...+334
2004 FTA
Det...792
Opp...609
DIF...+183
2005 FTA
Det...774
Opp...754
DIF...+20
You can argue cause and effect here, but the Shock have lost 314 free throw attempts since the champoinship season of 2003. Are the Shock players playing differently? If not, and I would tend to think not, then the game appears to be being called differently than it was in 2003. As to which way of calling the game is appropriate, that is a personal preference, but there is certainly evidence to suggest that the game is being called differently.
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golden33
Joined: 02 Jun 2005
Posts: 502
Location: Notre Dame, IN/ Cincinnati
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| Posted: 05/24/06 8:29 am ::: |
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| I agree ShockPR although you and I are both obviously biased in favor of the Shock. Too bad we couldn't get an entirely neutral observer to offer some input, but I don't think one exists, at least not on this board.
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ShockPR
Joined: 23 May 2005
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| Posted: 05/24/06 8:44 am ::: |
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| I'd like to think I'm relatively objective about it. I noticed this change in 2004 when I was still at the league office. However I can understand if people think I'm looking at things through Shock colored glassed. That's why I just tried to present the numbers as facts. People can draw their own conclusions as to what the difference is.
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womens_hoops
Joined: 20 Nov 2004
Posts: 2831
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| Posted: 05/24/06 8:48 am ::: |
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| it's pretty simple: the refs just aren't as intimidated by Laimbeer as they used to be.
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ILuvCatch
Joined: 16 Nov 2004
Posts: 583
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| Posted: 05/24/06 9:11 am ::: |
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| smenko wrote: |
| According to the Oakland Press (which keeps itself under tight security lest someone would actually want to read the paper online) Laimbeer flew out of Indy with one of the refs. They did not say what was said between them if anything. There is irony in that somewhere. |
My guess it was Barb Smith. She lives in MI.
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smenko
Joined: 18 Nov 2004
Posts: 4081
Location: metro detroit
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| Posted: 05/24/06 9:19 am ::: |
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Yes indeed! Brian Dunlap of the Oakland Press wrote:
"The ultimate irony following the game was that Shock head coach Bill Laimbeer sat near lead official Barb Smith on the plane ride home.
Laimbeer refused to comment on what he had to say, if anything at all, to Smith on the plane. But he was visibly frustrated by how the game was called.
'We should’ve shot 15 to 18 more free throws in the fi rst half,' Laimbeer said. 'The way the game was refereed changed in the second half. Unfortunately, we got caught in a trap right there.'"
I'm so psyched about tonight's game! It should be a fun time.
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00NDROCKS
Joined: 01 Sep 2005
Posts: 1124
Location: Indiana
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| Posted: 05/24/06 9:42 am ::: |
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| mikey87 wrote: |
| How can the SHOCK complain about bad calls, when they are the ones who play dirty. Well now maybe the REFS are paying more attention to them. |
DIRTY ??????? How do they play in the NBA ????? This is basketball, not powder puff ball. It gets rough under the basket when BOTH teams are going at it and someone is bound to get a few bumps and scrapes. I look at it this way, If you don't like it then stay out of the paint. I've seen the shock play and they play no different than any other team that wants to WIN!.
I was at the game Sat. Shock vs Fever and I along with all my friends could hardly at times keep focused on the game due to the lack of play given to the players. The refs who never took their whistles out of their mouths just could not let one play happen that they felt in someway they that they needed to be involved. It was just an awful game as far as there being steady play between the teams, it was as follows...
Rebound: Foul called
Rebound by either team and up the court they went only to be followed by a ref who was blowing that nagging little whistle for some reason or another. It was basicly one trip down the court followed by a whistle, constant stopping of play. I found myself yawning at times and wondering what exciting thing I could do after the game. It was just a bad deal for both teams.
I later found myself at a local pub talking with a Fever rep about all that I've stated today and they in return felt the same way that both teams just could not get into of the game due to the several and I mean several silly fouls.
Take it for what you want, but that is how I saw this game and I just hope the next one is better not only for the Fever but for whoever they may be playing that night.
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pilight
Joined: 23 Sep 2004
Posts: 66905
Location: Where the action is
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| Posted: 05/24/06 10:23 am ::: |
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The Shock front liners in 2003 (Cash, Ford, Riley, Farris, Walker, Ndiaye-Diatta) took 1121 shots.
In 2004 Cash, Ford, Riley, Farris, Walker, and Stephens took 1133 shots.
In 2005 Cash, Ford, Riley, Pierson, Farris, Braxton and Walker took 1133 shots.
Doesn't look like a style change.
I don't think it's unreasonable to think that the rest of the coaches in the league made some adjustments to minimize the Shock's FT edge. Heck, I said exactly that last year when the Shock were 6-7, the league had adjusted to Evil Bill's style and he hadn't done much to counter. I called him a one trick pony, and I haven't seen anything to make me change that assessment.
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Slovydal
Joined: 17 Nov 2004
Posts: 12205
Location: Indianapolis, IN
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| Posted: 05/24/06 6:55 pm ::: |
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| 00NDROCKS wrote: |
... both teams just could not get into of the game due to the several and I mean several silly fouls.
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That about sums it up, 00.
The bottom line is that they were messing with both teams and not just the Shock.
I hope the officials get back to Bill and admit their mistakes. - pointing out how many fouls the Shock got away with and how many bad calls went against the Fever.
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rebkell
Site Admin
Joined: 17 Aug 2004
Posts: 4898
Location: East Tennessee
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| Posted: 05/24/06 6:58 pm ::: |
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| What are the fouls tonight so far, 7 fouls on the Lynx and 0 on Detroit?
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norag1
Joined: 07 Aug 2005
Posts: 275
Location: Minneapolis, MN
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mikey87
Joined: 29 Oct 2005
Posts: 2165
Location: In My Crib..
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| Posted: 05/24/06 7:02 pm ::: |
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| 00NDROCKS wrote: |
| mikey87 wrote: |
| How can the SHOCK complain about bad calls, when they are the ones who play dirty. Well now maybe the REFS are paying more attention to them. |
DIRTY ??????? How do they play in the NBA ????? This is basketball, not powder puff ball. It gets rough under the basket when BOTH teams are going at it and someone is bound to get a few bumps and scrapes. I look at it this way, If you don't like it then stay out of the paint. I've seen the shock play and they play no different than any other team that wants to WIN!.
I was at the game Sat. Shock vs Fever and I along with all my friends could hardly at times keep focused on the game due to the lack of play given to the players. The refs who never took their whistles out of their mouths just could not let one play happen that they felt in someway they that they needed to be involved. It was just an awful game as far as there being steady play between the teams, it was as follows...
Rebound: Foul called
Rebound by either team and up the court they went only to be followed by a ref who was blowing that nagging little whistle for some reason or another. It was basicly one trip down the court followed by a whistle, constant stopping of play. I found myself yawning at times and wondering what exciting thing I could do after the game. It was just a bad deal for both teams.
I later found myself at a local pub talking with a Fever rep about all that I've stated today and they in return felt the same way that both teams just could not get into of the game due to the several and I mean several silly fouls.
Take it for what you want, but that is how I saw this game and I just hope the next one is better not only for the Fever but for whoever they may be playing that night. |
It's just my opinion and apparently ours differ.
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TDAO
Joined: 11 Jun 2005
Posts: 555
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| Posted: 05/25/06 12:01 am ::: |
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I guess this isn't nearly as insightful as I thought it was:
| Quote: |
There have been plenty of explanations thrown out there for why the Detroit Shock has gone from the 2003 WNBA Championship to consecutive first-round losses the last two seasons, but outside the Shock sidelines, you probably haven't heard this one: Referees.
It was at some point in 2004 that I first noticed that a lot of the Shock's 2003 success could be attributed to their remarkable free-throw differential. Despite shooting a subpar 70.7% from the free-throw line, Detroit outscored its opponents by 212 points on free throws in 2003 - more than they outscored opponents by overall (158 points). Despite a roster that is largely unchanged, the Shock was outscored by 56 points at the line last year. That made me want to investigate further.
Switching to fouls from free throws, I decided to start by seeing how rare Detroit's 2003 season was in terms of foul advantage. The answer? Quite rare indeed. The Shock was called for five fewer fouls per game than its opponents in 2003; nobody else in WNBA history has been more than 4.3 fouls better. The all-time top five:
| Code: |
Team Yr FoulDif/G
--------------------------
Detroit 03 -5.0
Houston 02 -4.3
Houston 03 -4.2
Houston 98 -4.2
Sacramento 99 -3.3 |
(Incidentally, it was Houston that had the biggest advantage in 2005, -3.1 fouls per game. And yes, I am a little bitter that the Comets shot 28 free throws to the Storm's five in Game 2 of their 2005 playoff series, a three-point loss.)
You'll notice that the other four teams, like the 2003 Shock, were rather successful. This is no surprise. For one thing, going to the free-throw line and keeping the opposition off of it will translate into success to some extent. The relationship also goes the other way; cynics would cite "superstar calls," but I'll just point out that good players are more difficult to defend and commit fewer mistakes.
Having established that the Shock was pretty special in terms of free throws and refereeing in 2003, the next question becomes this - how much of Detroit's decline since then is attributable to referees' whistles? To look at this, I decided to create foul-free Offensive and Defensive Ratings. That is, I took out all points from free throws and ignored free-throw attempts in terms of possessions. Here's how the referee-free ratings compare to Detroit's overall ratings.
| Code: |
Year ORtg DRtg Diff FORtg FDRtg FDif Ref
-----------------------------------------------
2003 97.4 90.8 +6.6 86.4 82.9 +3.5 +3.1
2004 92.4 93.9 -1.5 81.8 84.2 -2.4 +0.9
2005 87.8 90.6 -2.8 78.3 78.6 -0.2 -2.6 |
What do those numbers mean? Let's work through them. The "Diff" column is essentially a bottom-line summary of where the Shock has gone the last three years. Detroit took a huge step back between 2003 and 2004, losing 8.1 points per 100 possessions to the opposition. That is just mammoth, and considering the Shock lost only one key player (sixth woman Kedra Holland-Corn), pretty much unprecedented. This year wasn't as much of a step back as it might have seemed at times, and the downturn can largely be attributed to Swin Cash's injury.
The "FDif" column takes a look at how successful the Shock would be per 100 possessions in a game without fouls. Of course, this is an oversimplification - refereeing also affects the quality of shots a team gets, for example, while we're almost penalizing the 2003 Shock for working the ball inside for high-risk shots that also produced trips to the foul line. Unfortunately, we have to live with these shortcomings.
That the drop-off between 2003 and 2005 is not nearly so dramatic indicates that refereeing has had a lot to do with Detroit's decline. We can take a look at this in the Ref (for refereeing impact) column. In 2003, we estimate that refereeing had an impact of 3.1 points per 100 possessions in the Shock's favor, which is enormous. In fact, we're probably slightly underestimating it because Detroit is so bad at shooting free throws relative to its opposition. Detroit still was favored slightly by refereeing in 2004, but in 2005 the Shock was hurt as much by fouls as any team in the league. (Because the Shock is now below-average, the trend flips and the poor free-throw shooting overstates how much Detroit is hurt.)
As I said earlier, fouls favor better teams, and the Shock is unequivocally a worse team now than in 2003. However, last year Detroit was better at things besides getting to the line than in 2004, and the foul situation still became unfavorable for the Shock. (This can partly be attributed to Cash's injury, as she got to the free-throw line a ton pre-injury.)
How does this all make sense? Well, this theory makes sense to me; your mileage may very. At 6-10, Bill Laimbeer is the tallest coach in the WNBA. He wouldn't like to hear it, but he's probably also the heaviest. He's an intimidating guy who was, after all, part of the "Bad Boys" as a player. I think Laimbeer's intimidation factor may have helped his team with the men and women in gray during his first two seasons on the sidelines. Clearly, that effect has worn off, as the league as a whole seems to have grown somewhat weary of Laimbeer's outsized personality. I don't think the referees have consciously changed how they treat Laimbeer and his team, but the evidence seems to indicate something has changed subconsciously. |
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ShockPR
Joined: 23 May 2005
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| Posted: 05/25/06 8:01 am ::: |
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| You should post that somewhere as an article. People would read it.
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