Sports and blown calls

[Don]

While watching the NBA playoffs, a lot of the time I'd see one team obviously had a blown call against them, and people on message boards and even the analysts who are supposed to get paid for this on TV say like: "Well that was a blown call against team X, but if they made their freethrows/shot better/do something else they'd never have been in a position to get screwed."

And you know, this is a logical absurdity. If team A stranded 25 guys on base, employed Suicide Blitz as a strategy, or missed 35 free throws, there is no rule that says during the crucial moment, you're supposed to be punished by bad officiating because you screwed up in the past. I know officiating is tough, and you can never get every call right or a game of basketball would take 5 hours. But the last 2 minutes of the game the refs are now supposed to use instant replay, so how can you look at instant replay and miss something and say well the rules says we're not allowed to change things even if we obviously messed up a call?

[Eric]

Yeah it's a pretty idiotic thing sportscasters say, kind of a macho attitude.

[Kupek]

I think it's related to something Don posted a bit ago about sports: we have a tendency to narrate past events. In doing so, we weave a narrative through events which might not be actually independent, but are still chaotic. (In the mathematical sense of the word: small deviations in initial conditions can have large impact on the end state.)

[Don]

Well I'm not saying if you lose by 1 and you missed 25 freethrows, would it be different if you only missed 5 freethrows since that'd almost be like a totally different game. The problem I have is that it is very common for fans and even professionals that analyze a game like this:

"Today team X tried to get a final shot off and were clothslined by the defender and the ref didn't call a foul and lost. However they also missed 25 freethrows and missed 5 open 3s, so you can't say the ref screwed them the game because they failed to do their job."

You basically have a criteria of:

(screwing up early) implies (it's okay to get screwed on a final call).

For example if you look at one of the Bulls vs Celtics game, most people agree Rondo should've had a Flagrant Foul when he smacked Brad Miller across the head when Bulls were down by 2. Instead he only got a regular foul, and missed both free throws badly and lost the game. If it was a Flagrant Foul, Bulls would get 2 shots + the ball. If Brad Miller was too hurt to continue shooting, he can choose someone else to shoot for him provided he doesn't return. Note that for a regular foul, it's the Celtics that get to decide who gets to shoot free throws if Brad Miller was too hurt to continue playing.

And yet *professional* analysis of this event usually revolves around if Bulls made this shot or that shot later they wouldn't have needed this at the end. One of the ESPN guy even said well even if it was a Flagrant they might not have won anyway so you can't say the refs screwed them. I mean seriously, what kind of logic is this? Just because you could've lost anyway it's okay miss a Flagrant Foul? In one of the Laker vs Spurs game, Fisher fouled Barry on the last shot and Barry missed badly, and the foul wasn't called. Now you can say yeah if Barry took 3 free throws he still could've missed them all and the Spurs would've lost anyway, so it doesn't matter you foul someone on a 3 that wasn't called?

I like watching sports but I really hate the guys analyzing them. I especially like the one where a guy will say 'the better team always wins', and if the team that won wasn't the team he called, it's clear that the other team was actually the better team. How can you ever be wrong with logic like this? Basketball, in particular, always have the losing team complaining about the game is rigged since they're bitter. I'm not expecting a professional guy to also say 'OMG they rigged this game so Lakers can move on!', but it's almost as if the NBA is trying to make it look like all the games are totally fair even when they've obviously blown a call that adversely affect the outcome of the game. I know NBA is one of the toughest sports to officiate, but I really hate listening to the same old stuff about how 'that foul didn't matter anyway because you should've done XYZ better'. Of course they matter.

In the miracle 0.4 Fisher shot game, someone (Walker?) from Lakers made a 3 after the time expired at halftime, but the refs missed that so they counted it. Could the Lakers have won without that 3? Possible, but certainly they'd be strictly worse if that 3 didn't count, and I think that shot was why they started doing instant replays at the end of quarters because they realized you just can't reliably tell if a shot went off on time by eyeballing.

[Imakeholesinu]

Watch a Detroit Redwings vs. X team and see how the game is called. Especially against a division foe, Detroilet seems to always get the upper hand.

Even the national broadcasters rip the refs for questionable calls when telecasting the games.

[Blotus]

Watch a Detroit Redwings vs. X team and see how the game is called. Especially against a division foe, Detroilet seems to always get the upper hand.

Oh hey stupid, that Anaheim series might have been over by now if that bullshit whistle hadn't robbed Hossa's goal two games ago.

[Imakeholesinu]

Watch a Detroit Redwings vs. X team and see how the game is called. Especially against a division foe, Detroilet seems to always get the upper hand.

Oh hey stupid, that Anaheim series might have been over by now if that bullshit whistle hadn't robbed Hossa's goal two games ago.

And the Blues would have been in round two had we had the two goals that were called back in our series as well.

[KluYa]

While watching the NBA playoffs, a lot of the time I'd see one team obviously had a blown call against them, and people on message boards and even the analysts who are supposed to get paid for this on TV say like: "Well that was a blown call against team X, but if they made their freethrows/shot better/do something else they'd never have been in a position to get screwed."

And you know, this is a logical absurdity. If team A stranded 25 guys on base, employed Suicide Blitz as a strategy, or missed 35 free throws, there is no rule that says during the crucial moment, you're supposed to be punished by bad officiating because you screwed up in the past. I know officiating is tough, and you can never get every call right or a game of basketball would take 5 hours. But the last 2 minutes of the game the refs are now supposed to use instant replay, so how can you look at instant replay and miss something and say well the rules says we're not allowed to change things even if we obviously messed up a call?

I don't think they're saying that a team who's missed some chances earlier in the game is supposed to become a victim of bad officiating. The point is simply that lucky and unlucky breaks on both sides are inevitable and so if you can't or don't outperform your opponents to a degree where the game isn't really close, you run the risk that one of these inevitable bounces or breaks will be enough on it's own to become the difference in the game. I agree that it's not much of a point because teams generally give it their all 100% of the time anyway, especially in the post season, but there are times when it seems a team who looks to be more dominant and perhaps takes an early lead begins to relax slightly and play without a sense of urgency that eventually allows the underdog team to catch up. That's when you start praying to the gods that a blown call or an unlucky bounce doesn't incidentally go in your opponents' favour.

It's sort of like how the Red Wings played like shit for most of the first 40 minutes in game 3 of the WCSF and eventually lost the game in which a goal by Hossa was disallowed because of a goofy "intent to blow" rule in the NHL. Yeah if Watson didn't happen to lose sight of the puck (something the Wings cannot control) then Detroit gets a chance to possibly win that game, and by the same token if they didn't perform to a level well below what they are capable of for 2/3rds of that hockey game (something they do control) they would've had a much better chance to win that game as well. To Detroit's credit, they didn't let the hooplah over that unfortunate play overshadow the fact that their own mediocre play kept them from being able to have complete control over their own fate that game, and they made the correct adjustments and played quite strongly in game 4.

And the Blues would have been in round two had we had the two goals that were called back in our series as well.

The Blues got swept. Please explain how 2 goals were going to win St. Louis 4 games. My calculator just facepalm'd when I tried to compute this.

[Don]

Well I don't know much about hockey rules, but NFL uses instant replays. NBA also uses instant replays in the last 2 minutes of a quarter for certain things. Obviously offciating is part of the game (otherwise there wouldn't be much point to a home court advantage if calls don't magically go your way at home) but I don't see how you can argue against stuff you have instant replay on. I know they don't do this all the time because otherwise they'd probably have to stop to check instant replay each time LeBron has the ball because he allgedly travels on every possession, and no one wants to see a 5 hour basketball game.

In NBA the refs are supposed to use instant replay to review stuff like 3 pointers and buzzer-beater shots in the last 2 minutes of the game (and maybe half?). But I think they can only review these things, which means if Rondo makes a 3 at the buzzer, and while going through the instant review (to see if he beat the buzzer) you saw Paul Pierce doing a dragon punch on the guy who was supposed to be defending Rondo, you can't go back and call that. And then the professional analysts will be like 'oh it's just one call for the Celtics, if their opponent put them away earlier it wouldn't have mattered!' It basically reads like some kind of cheesy sports manga where the refs are always rigging the outcome of the game.

Carmelo Anthony was intentionally fouled in one game, which the refs missed, and got off a game winning 3, and I think they reviewed that because they need to see if it was really a 3, but even though you can also clearly see he was already fouled prior to shooting the 3, they can't go back and change the call and that probably cost Mavericks the game (they had a foul to give).

It seems to be totally a head-in-the-sand approach when you actually have a rule that uses instant replay but can only be used to catch certain things.