Who deserves more blame for Boston’s Game 3 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks – the Celtics or the refs?

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/deserves-more-blame-boston-game-183114179.html

Celtics Wire
Who deserves more blame for Boston’s Game 3 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks – the Celtics or the refs?
Justin Quinn
Sun, May 8, 2022, 2:31 PM

Who deserves more blame for the Boston Celtics’ Game 3 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks in their Eastern Conference semifinals series — the team itself, or the refs who made a number of questionable calls against the Celtics late in the game?

On one hand, it is hard not to get upset about the missed obvious 3-point attempt foul call from veteran point guard Marcus Smart late in the game, or a seemingly clear goaltending call gotten away with by Milwaukee superstar forward Giannis Antetokounmpo. But on the other, it certainly wasn’t the refs holding star Boston swingman Jayson Tatum to just 10 points, nor baiting he and Smart into shooting a combined 10-of-25 from the field with just 5 assists between them.

The host of the NBC Sports Boston “Celtics Beat” podcast Chris Forsberg linked up with NBC Sports Boston sideline reporter Abby Chin after the dust settled on the 103-101 Game 3 loss to talk this particular point over.

Refereeing, officiating whatever one calls it has been horrible league wide and its been this way for quite sometime. The problem exists for both teams playing in the game so every team has their gripes. You’ve heard it before that it all evens out in the end but it really doesn't. The game of basketball itself suffers, the fans suffer and the players suffer.
The one call on the Marcus 3 at the end of the game was certainly a factor and we’ll see more of this throughout the playoffs. Did it cost us the game? We don't know because there were free throws that still had to be made.
What we do know is that poor officiating is effecting every game.
We don't need replay and replay to check replay. We don't need coaches challenges. Technology be damned. None of this solves the problem.
Quit changing the GD rules, Hire and train better officials and start doing that like yesterday. It wont change anything this season but it needs to happen right away. If not, there needs to be a race to see who can be the first to fire the commissioner.

Ktron,

I've heard more, "If the Celtics had done just this or that in one play, etc." than the refs blew it." All be told, we should not have put ourselves in that position in the first place. We're back to floundering again and we have no one to "blame" but Coach Bud for studying all our previous season and the first half of this season's Celtic film. He's forced us into ISO ball and bricking 3's. All it takes to beat us at this level is one of our two J's to keep jacking threes beyond the point of no return and not at least try something different, i.e. take a step or two inside the line for an open shot or, Lord help them, drive down the lane and get Giannis and Lopez in foul trouble.

We won the first series by cutting off the head(s) of the snake in all four games. While this snake head requires a different machete, we temporarily let the foot off the gas in G3.

Picking on the refs is always going to be a biased option at best. That's why they are hired in the first place. To be humanly unbiased in their calls. And not even that, they just need to call the game. Even being unbiased is biased.

You see this happen when there is a huge discrepancy in fouls. After the game, everyone says the refs aren't being fair. There should be balance. No, the refs should call the game as they see it regardless of pressure to appear "balanced".

Anyway, we're still down 2-1. Boston needs to show up like the last part of the season and push those rice eaters back to the 38th Parallel, make them take apart the Great Wall of China brick by brick and blow them back to Stone Age forever!! Ugh! UUUUUUUUUUUUGH!!

But I digress...

db

Right. Officials don't keep a running score of how many fouls have been called on both teams. At least not during the game. I agree that the officials should call the game as they see it. in the meantime while continuing to operate on that premise, the league needs to put in a full all out effort to hire and train better officials, Fire the incompetent ones and send the few worth saving to a ‘Half-Time’ house with hopes of rehabbing the few that have a little something left.

The Celtics had a TERRIBLE 3rd quarter. If they had come out after halftime playing better we wouldn't be talking about the last 2 minutes. We were a whisker away despite that quarter.

The refs did blow 5 calls in the last two minutes per the L2M report, so that's not good either.


Bob


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