buzzdog
Hall-of-Famer
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- May 26, 2007
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I'll say this one last piece and be done with it. IDK if Porter brushed the ref intentionally or if it was an accident.
Porter had just completed a nice 3 point play on the possession before that and he was visibly fired up, in a good way that players react after they make a positive play. No doubt he was pumped up in those minutes.
Looking at his eyes as he ran past the ref it absolutely could have been unintentional. If he did do it on purpose then he was at least trying to make it look unintentional. His eyes looked over towards the sidelines and he was angling in that direction (opposite the team benches) and as the horn sounded for the end of the period he looked at the Cavs bench and turned in that direction to jog over to the bench. As he changed direction he brushed against the ref's back.
In the actual game broadcast nobody seemed to notice the contact, nobody mentioned the contact, there was no technical penalty called, and Porter continued to play with no apparent immediate repercussions.
I absolutely understand protecting the refs from actual "thuggish behavior". At the same time, players run past refs and come within an inch of contact dozens of times a game, and they run past other players more than that making actual contact, usually much harder than what happened in this incident.
This was so far from "thug like" that I find it disturbing that fans of the team would want to jump so easily to this conclusion. It was most likely a careless moment. The NBC writer Kurt Helin was out of line with what he wrote IMO. He wrote that it was intentional, he wrote that it was pretty "cut and dried", he wrote that it was "intentional and not an accident". Based on what?
If it was so clear that it was intentional then why didn't the ref blow the whistle and giver Porter a technical, and if it was so clearly "not an accident" then why didn't the ref eject Porter from the game? None of that happened, and Porter was on the court to start the fourth period.
The fact is, it wasn't clear or obvious to anyone when it happened. Porter was suspended after a post game review of the tapes. The NBA rule is clear, NO player-ref contact is permitted. Porter clearly DID make contact, hence the suspension. To call it thug like? I'll stick to calling that a bullshit opinion.
Porter had just completed a nice 3 point play on the possession before that and he was visibly fired up, in a good way that players react after they make a positive play. No doubt he was pumped up in those minutes.
Looking at his eyes as he ran past the ref it absolutely could have been unintentional. If he did do it on purpose then he was at least trying to make it look unintentional. His eyes looked over towards the sidelines and he was angling in that direction (opposite the team benches) and as the horn sounded for the end of the period he looked at the Cavs bench and turned in that direction to jog over to the bench. As he changed direction he brushed against the ref's back.
In the actual game broadcast nobody seemed to notice the contact, nobody mentioned the contact, there was no technical penalty called, and Porter continued to play with no apparent immediate repercussions.
I absolutely understand protecting the refs from actual "thuggish behavior". At the same time, players run past refs and come within an inch of contact dozens of times a game, and they run past other players more than that making actual contact, usually much harder than what happened in this incident.
This was so far from "thug like" that I find it disturbing that fans of the team would want to jump so easily to this conclusion. It was most likely a careless moment. The NBC writer Kurt Helin was out of line with what he wrote IMO. He wrote that it was intentional, he wrote that it was pretty "cut and dried", he wrote that it was "intentional and not an accident". Based on what?
If it was so clear that it was intentional then why didn't the ref blow the whistle and giver Porter a technical, and if it was so clearly "not an accident" then why didn't the ref eject Porter from the game? None of that happened, and Porter was on the court to start the fourth period.
The fact is, it wasn't clear or obvious to anyone when it happened. Porter was suspended after a post game review of the tapes. The NBA rule is clear, NO player-ref contact is permitted. Porter clearly DID make contact, hence the suspension. To call it thug like? I'll stick to calling that a bullshit opinion.