Yao Out for Season; Denver-Dallas: A Bennett Salvatore-Led Crew Does in the Mavs Again – and ESPN ‘s “Doublethink” and “Crimestop”
May 9, 2009 by dwil
Yao Ming will miss the remainder of the playoffs with a broken foot. Ming suffered the injury late in the fourth quarter of the Rockets 108-94 Game 3 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers.
Ming will be out of action for eight to 12 weeks.
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Here’s how Jamie Aron of the Associated Press initially reported the final play of the Denver-Dallas game Saturday afternoon:
No matter how many things the Denver Nuggets did wrong Saturday, they somehow always remained within striking distance of the Dallas Mavericks.
And with a second left, Carmelo Anthony struck.
Anthony broke free of a defender trying to foul him and nailed a 3-pointer that gave the Nuggets a 106-105 victory over the Mavericks, giving them a 3-0 series lead that has been insurmountable in NBA history.
Denver trailed 105-101 with 31 seconds left, but got a quick dunk from Anthony and forced Dirk Nowitzki to miss a 13-footer with about 8 seconds left. After a timeout, Anthony took an inbounds pass and Dallas’Antoine Wright tried to foul him — twice — since the Mavericks had a foul to give.
Anthony lost his dribble the first time, then bounced off the second bump to find himself wide open. He buried the 3 from right in front of the Mavericks bench, where everyone was going bonkers over the lack of a foul call. It was pretty ironic considering there had been 61 fouls called to that point, keeping either team from ever getting into a flow the entire game.
Dallas’ last-gasp chance was a high-arching 3 from Nowitzki that was nowhere close to going in. At the buzzer, the crowd fell silent, the Nuggets began to celebrate and the Mavericks began to gripe. Team owner Mark Cuban shoved a cameraman and several clusters of players appeared to be exchanging words with Denver players and staff. Cuban continued his tirade behind the scorer’s table, his face reddening.
Rick Kamla of NBATV said:
“This is just how it goes in the NBA.”
Kamla’s pro-league statement was ludicrous. And it was disembowled by Dalls head coach Rick Caslisle:
“Mark makes that call 100% of the time. After 61 fouls during the game you don’t make that call when we have a foul to give?….. he knew we had a foul to give, I was standing there yelling, ‘Get Him, get him, hit him.’ I-I don’t understand. Officiating has to be a science, not an art… If I sit here and belabor this it’s not going to be good for our league or our team. It’s one of those times where it’s really an unfortunate thing.
ESPN’s Mike Breen said everything but Anoine Wright fouled Anthony – “Anoine Wright tried to foul Carmelo Anthony” – but in the end refused to disseminate the actual happening to the viewing audience. Meantime color commentator Doris Burke sat next to Breen red-faced, silent, and obviously fuming over the play.
What makes this play so suspect is that this referee crew was led by Bennett Salvatore. It was Salvatore who was responsible for Miami’s “miracle” Game 3 comeback against Dallas in the 2006 Finals. It was Salvatore and his crew that suddenly began sending Dwayne Wade to the free throw line at a record pace.
In the game’s crucial fourth quarter Salvatore and crew called only six fouls on Denver after calling 28 on the Nuggets through the first three quarters, or nine per 12 minutes, all but one were shooting fouls after a third quarter where the Nuggets had four non-shooting fouls (Denver was called for three non-shooting fouls in each of the first two quarters).
Denver played aggressively on both ends of the floor as they had the first two games of the series. Because they refused to adjust to the tight calls of Salvatore’s crew the Nuggets had six players with four or more fouls by game’s end. That Denver never altered their style of play, the manner in which the fourth quarter was officiated even more conspicuous.
Even the NBA league office admitted that there was a mistake on the final play:
The NBA office just released the following from Joel Litvin:
“At the end of the Dallas-Denver game this evening, the officials missed an intentional foul committed by Antoine Wright on Carmelo Anthony, just prior to Anthony’s three-point basket.”
Too bad for Dallas that the referee, Mark Wunderlich could not make a call where he stood less than three feet from the play. Dallas is now down 3-0 to Denver with little hope of making a comeback in the series against the confident Nuggets.
The only thing of interest in this series will be Mavericks owner Mark Cuban’s public statements about the blown call.
Addendum: ESPN NBA analyst Jon Barry blamed Wright for Wunderlich’s blown call:
I know the NBA admitted they made a mistake but if you’re Antoine Wright you wrap up Carmelo Anthony. You got to the official before the play and tell him you’re going to commit a foul.”
Apparently Barry failed to take into consideration three factors in viewing the play: 1) From Rick Carlisle’s statements, he has never, in all his years as a head coach or bench coach, instructed a player to tell a referee he is about to commit a foul; 2) from the way the game had been called, if Wright “wrapped up” Anthony he might have been charged with an intentional or flagrant 1 foul, and; 3) there is no question that Wright did commit a foul and it was Mark Wunderlich who made the mistake, not Wright.
This type of statement is what makes ESPN in all its permutations, so exasperating to watch, listen to, or read. Because they broadcast the games, they cannot also be roundly critical of people within the leagues, despite glaring errors made by those people.
The cozy relationship with every sport from the NFL to ping-pong will always act to compromise the journalistic credibility of ESPN and its reporters. At the Big Subliminal reporters who are critical of league management, be they referees or umpires, team owners, or commissioners are always undercut by another ESPN reporter or television or radio talking head who sides with management.
This doublespeak becomes the “doublethink” and “crimestop” of the media in George Orwell’s book, 1984 come to life. In Orwell’s prophetic tome doublethink is also called “reality control.” It where a newsperson holds and presents two contradictory thoughts at once and voices them to the public.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary carries the term:
dou•ble•think (‘d&-b&l-”thi[ng]k), noun, Date: 1949 : a simultaneous belief in two contradictory ideas.
“Crimestop” is a reason for the act of doublethink. According to Orwell, crimestop is:
“The faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. In short….protective stupidity.”
Doublethink and crimestop are willingly and gleefully practiced by the news disseminators at the Big Subliminal – and the public is the victim of these two acts. But it is the public that accepts the Orwellian ”blackwhite” or the blind acceptance whatever “truthiness” ESPN spews, without regard to how absurd it may be.
Orwell described it as:
“…loyal willingness to say black is white when party discipline demands this. It also means the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know black is white, and forget that one has ever believed the contrary.”
How perfectly ESPN.
Dwil – ESPN simply can’t resist an opportunity to blame a player for something. I suppose Barry didn’t once consider that with all the flagrant fouls and suspensions that maybe Wright was a little hesitant to do too hard of a foul on Carmelo (especially given Melo’s star status in the league).
“from the way the game had been called, if Wright “wrapped up” Anthony he might have been charged with an intentional or flagrant 1 foul”
Given the particularly bullshit way that these playoffs have been called, that statement, this statement carries even more weight.
you can see in the replay that the ref was looking at the baseline to make sure he didn’t step out of bounds…
you can argue all you want the fix was somehow in… Wright should’ve fouled him before he made the move to the three point line, he should’ve wrapped him up and it wouldn’t have been called a Flagrant. Plenty of guys have been wrapped up this postseason and it hasn’t been called flagrant…
All in all.. the game was called so poorly in the 3rd quarter that I’m not surprised it ended the way it did. Give Carmelo Anthony some credit, he played through it and didn’t wait for the whistle. He still had to hit the shot so… Game, set, match
I can’t remember whether it was Upton Sinclair or H.L. Mencken, but either way, I’m paraphrasing:
It’s hard to make a man understand something when his livelihood depends on him not understanding it.
LOL @ these 2nd rd playoffs. Now you can’t even intentionally foul someone. I still say Dallas may squeeze out at least one game. I think H-town maybe finished…
[...] Denver-Dallas: A Bennett Salvatore-Led Crew Does in the Mavs Again – and ESPN ’s “Doubleth… [...]
Boney-
You can try to excuse the ref all you want but the fact remains, it is his job to make the proper call and he failed. And under the conditions, he failed miserably. That cannot be disputed. Anything else is bullshit and/or an excuse (which is bull shit, too).
With that said, at the moment of the foul he looks directly at the play…… MODI and I ran through this on the phone moments after the game ended. I stopped the DVR right at the foul and the ref is looking directly at the two players and Wright hacking Anthony. Only after that moment do his eyes focus on Anthony’s feet.
And I give Carmelo Anthony credit for hitting a wide-open three at the end of the game.
S2N-
How true, how sadly true.
Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady are ALWAYS hurt!
Carmelo just put the dagger in them boys yesterday. I think it was a good no call. If Wright levels him then he gets a flagrant 1 or 2.
Jon Barry should be banned from television. To hear him talk he was all-world. I guess he gets to get back at all those guys in the league that used to bust his ass now that he is on ESPN. He is a stone-cold buster!!!!
This morning ESPN’s “newspeak” continues. Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic are debating – as if there should be one – the final play and the foul. Greenberg is blaming Wright and removing all responsibility from the official, as if Wright did not commit a foul at all. Golic says Wright did not foul him hard enough (and potentially get a flagrant?!), but at least he admits there was a foul.
Now, all but one email that the pair has read, so far, blames Wright totally. Green berg and Golic receive hundreds, if not thousands of emails. However, there are producers and producer’s assistants making decisions as to which emails to pass along to the two. These email have been selected for the two to read and are not at all necessarily representative of the overall public sentiment.
But that people can watch multiple replays from myriad camera angles and still exonerate the official from all responsibility speaks volumes as to how people view personal responsibility.
This wasn’t the Battier block-charge call where Odom got hurt. I thought it was a charge until they should the play from another angle and slowed down the play and I realized Battier was still sliding laterally slightly. That was a split-second judgement call. The Wright play, on the other hand, was cut-and-dried. He brought his arm up brought it down across Anthony’s arms, and caused him to momentarily lose the ball – period.
Does anyone have anything in print that shows that Dallas notified the officiating crew about their intent to give a simple foul to put ‘Melo at the line? If so, please post the link.
Thanks!
Phil as far as I know Carlise didn’t notify the refs.
The thing that is crazy (and folks here in Dallas are hot about) is that Wright didn’t try to foul him whne Carmello lost the ball.
Also another thing is that it seemed as though Wright hit Anthoney and thought Carmello would throw a shot up (you know whne guys think that their is a intentional foul and just throw up a shot). So he just raises his hands as to say “look I was trying to foul him but, I don’t want the foul now because he is shooting a 3″.
Carmello didn’t do this, he just took the bump and released a perfect shot. So IMO not even Cramello thought the ref would blow the whistle to give Wright an intentional foul. Or Carmello figured that the mavs would never try to intentional foul. Because players often know that teams intend to intentional foul.
Another thing why are teams no longer taking intentional delay of games on inbound passes at the end of games.
Last once again the mavs shoot jumpers when the refs were bailing them out late in games if they just drove to the hole. Dirk missed 2 jumpers in the last 2 minutes (not including the last jumper with 1 sec left). And Carlise didn’t even have Howard guarding Carmello………..ummm why???
Oh and Dwil you are so right I saw that Battier taking a charge on Odom that was garbage.
That was a block all the way.
And D@mn Yao is brittle as tooth picks……………he better go to china and see if the government and their olympic scientist can rub some HGH on his feet.
Anthony, to his credit, didn’t look to the ref for a call and NBA superstars aren’t known for that. They can and DO look for calls quite often.
What I’m afraid of is that next time, in this situation, a defensive player instructed to give a foul is going to WHACK a guy. Hard. And the offensive guy will try to hoist up an awkward shot to get himself in the act of shooting or he’ll fall down like a fainting goat a la Greg Paulus.
What if someone on Atlanta, who cannot win their series, is in a tight Game 4 with Cleveland and LeBron takes a late shot and the Hawks player karate chops him on the hand a la Matt Geiger on Shaq? Broken hand for LeBron. No title for you.
Antoine Wright should be let out of the box on this. It’s too easy to blame the players, and we see that the media was trying to get Van Gundy to blame his team on the last-second shot by Davis against Orlando. Guess what? As far as I’m concerned, if I were an Orlando fan, as long as Pierce, Allen or Rondo didn’t take a jumpshot to beat me to win a game, mission accomplished. NOBODY is going to double-team Glen Davis that far from the basket, but those other guys? You sort of have to because of their ability to shoot it (Pierce or Allen or add in House) or dribble it to a scoring spot on the floor (Pierce or Rondo.)
Yeah I can’t blame Orlando Phil. But I have to given Doc Rivers credit he called a hell of a play.
Man I have been watching about 90% of Boston’s games since last year. That Big Babby’s sweet spot.
Great call and great shot.
Actually Phil I believe next time a playe will actually wrap a player up. I just felt that Wright was making a half effort to foul. Which I blame the coach more then him.
Wright hasn’t played in many meaningful games in his career.
If you look at the replays Anthony actually pushes off both times that Wright trys to foul or push him………whatever that half effort was.
Once again why was Howard not on Anthony. And why did Anthony realize that their was going to be no foul taken/called.
I have never seen that in my 25 plus years watching the NBA.