Until later today when I can return to the keyboard (ed. note, I was so angry I lied about returning) I have only three sentences for you:
Baron Davis and Jason Richardson's actions were more than poor sportsmanship -- they were dangerous and unprovoked; Sloan has many faults, but he would never allow such actions to occur on his team without consequence -- neither should the league; what constitutes "dirty play" has been given constant coverage in the other half of the Western conference semifinals -- any NBA journalist who wrote about the topic and does not now resoundingly condemn the incidents in the last minutes of Game 4 is a hypocrite.
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Add to the fact that everyone defending Richardson's foul is saying that Okur shouldn't have tried to take it to the basket. Hmm, let's see. Let the show clock run out or actually score two points? I don't understand how you can defend that.
Meanwhile, everyone and their dog was talking about Baron Davis' dunk on AK. Wasn't that under similar pretenses? A double standard that shouldn't be excused in Richardson's case.
As for Baron's elbow, I don't know what that was all about. I appreciate the Jazz retaining their mental toughness in the face of a mentally juvenile team, but I'm not so sure that wasn't intentional either.
Here's hoping that if the Jazz are close to winning Game 5 that the Warriors don't really do something cheap.
Look, Okur totally crossed that old sportsmanship rule that thou shall not disrespect the home court of a losing team with a meaningless dunk in the closing seconds. It's the same things as TO on the star in Dallas. A class act doesn't do what Okur attempted to do, and he ended up hard on his ass for his efforts. Next time, take the jumper, Mehmet!
Do you think Harpring would have allowed Richardson to dunk like that 13 points ahead in SLC? Jazz fans who cry over a couple of hard, frustration fouls suffer from selective amnesia (think Karl Malone and Isiah Thomas, for the goriest example).
Our players aren't crying, so our fans should follow suit. After all, they know how the game is played much more intimately than we do. There is no resemblance between these fouls and the SA/Phoenix series, silly DDD.
Calling out two dirty plays (one that could have left an opponent in a wheelchair), I can't classify that as "crying." Those were two disturbing acts.
The fouls looked worse than they were - otherwise Okur wouldn't have said, "I overreacted" after getting knocked down and Fisher wouldn't have been making excuses for Davis.
Plus, there's no history of bad blood or cheap fouls between these teams. And the players genuinely seem to respect each other.
The only people I've really seen complain are Jazz fans. It's understandable given the nature of being a fan, but I'd much rather read about the Giricek shrinking flower or how Williams almost cost us the game with turnovers and way too many missed shots.
For example: why does DDD's Kingpin shoot as many shots as Boozer in this contest? Why didn't Williams get Carlos 30 shots? Game wouldn't have required a Fisher blow-up to secure victory for us if he'd run sets more intelligently and resisted the urge to play individual showdown ball against Davis. To me, those are the stories from this game because if not checked, they could lead to future losses.
Sasha, you are correct in saying that there was no bad blood between these two teams. But there should be now. Baron Davis clearly elbowed Fisher for no reason, and Fisher remained a class act and said all the right things in the interview. And with the shot clock winding down, the cheap shot against Memo should not be defended by anyone. This is basketball, and if you really wanted to defend your homecourt, you would have won the game in the first place. In case anyone is stupid, this is the reason people have been referring to the W's as thugs. Al Harrington's hard foul to Boozer (which I believe was a genuine accident) is another one being overlooked, and I think that someone should be suspended for their actions. It is ridiculous and immature for the Warriors to be taking out there frustrations on the Jazz players.
I can't agree with you guys on this one. Our players and coaches aren't upset (at least publically), so why should we be? It's a fairly inconsequential distraction from the real issues.
On the topic of issues, what about Williams and Giricek: combined 11 turnovers and a load of missed shots (6/20)? Or AK's and Okur's idiotic 5th fouls? IMHO, Fisher bailed them all out from harsher criticism.
DDD: you gotta give Sloan props for winning this one, despite the fact he really does need to retire. He made the team focus on scoring in the paint, despite their inclinations to ignore Boozer.
Sorry for my conspicuous absence, but my journalistic life aside from sports has been beckoning. . .it's not surprising that the Jazz players have been playing down the incidents -- that's the organization’s overly humble style (however, if they hadn't won the game, I suspect their reaction would have been different). That doesn't mean we have to agree with it.
Unequivocally, Richardson should have been suspended. What he did to Okur was dramatically more dangerous than what Robert Horry did to Steve Nash last night.
The idea that Okur was showing up the Warriors during a blow-out on their home floor is no excuse...and it doesn't work as an argument anyway -- the game was within reach (and had been close all night) so it was entirely reasonable for him to drive to an undefended hoop for a dunk.
There is simply no excuse for what Richardson did, nor his reaction.
If the Jazz weren't the most consistently ignored and underappreciated team in the league, Richardson would have been suspended.
Imagine if this had happened to Luke Walton. You're telling me there wouldn't be a major media uproar?
Luke Walton?? So now it's the classic Utah whine: "we get no respect because we're a small market team". As predictable as Harpring getting beat to the baseline. Or are you saying the media is racist against Turks?
Come back to planet Earth, DDD!
Look, I’ve had like 6 hours sleep in the last two days...if I want to be in outer space, then I'll be in outer space, okay?!
Just for this, my next column is going to be about how NBA referees are bought and sold by the Armenian mafia.
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