The Pistons/Suns game had some questionable calls on both sides. IMO, I can`t say that those calls decided that game, however, as tight as the Western Conf. race is, I understand the Suns anger and disgust.

If you are called upon to ref these remaining 12 or so games left in this tight race, you are under an enormous amount of pressure. A bad call here or there could indeed be the difference of a club well over .500 to miss the playoffs.

I look for a lot of techs to be called in the last 3 1/2 weeks of the season, (whether they are justified or not) hopefully a bad call will not be the reason for missing the playoffs for Golden State, Denver, or the Mavs.

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"I haven`t really seen anyone defend KG, but Sheed". Chauncey Billups discussing Sheed`s underated defense, in his opinion.

To blame a single call by an official as the reason why a team doesn't make the playoffs sounds a bit silly to me.

A team that misses the playoffs will lose at least 30 games. The loss at the beginning of the season counts the same as the loss at the end.

Similarly, we tend to focus on made/missed shots, calls/non-calls, etc. that occur at the very end of a game, but there are literally several hundred plays throughout a game that ultimately decide the final outcome.

my track coach in highschool was also the football coach so sorta coached us from that mindset... will always remember after losing a conference meet in the last event the mile relay on us being dq'd for a handoff exchange (very close and depends on what school you ask whether the right call was made or not)....

anyways after the meet and were all moaning about the bad call, he went around the room to each of us and said... you know if you did this, we would have won... now some of the if's were unlikely to happen the 5th miler on our team running 30 secs faster then he ever did wasn't likely but we probably had 15 things that we could have done in that meet that would have won it for us.

Never blame one call, or one action for a lose in a game... for every play that was made there are many others that could also have been done...

Another saying he said is never leave the game close enough for the refs to have a chance to decided the outcome.

BINGO! This is what I found frustrating during last year's playoff run, where it seemed the Pistons were content to keep things close until the 4th quarter because they thought they'd pull out the win. When you are in that situation then of course every call that doesn't go your way seems very important.

Not to say that the warriors will get out of the 8th spot, but they got rooked by a call at the end of the game the other night vs the Lakers where Fisher grabbed Monta Ellis and dragged him down but to the refs and of course the Laker announcers called it an offensive foul. reviews of the play the next date indicated it was a tossup and could have gone either way (Plus the warriors still needed to score a tying basket with less than 7 seconds left.)

Any way a refs call like this can make the difference in the standings when the conference leader changes every night the top 5 teams are with 1.5 games of the top spot.

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"Once you go Barack, you never go Bak" Mario Cantone 2008

Thank you Dre. That`s the point I was trying to make - it certainly can make a difference in a race this tight. I don`t buy that what went on all game crap one bit when 4 games seperate the top seed from the 7th or 8th seed. Each play, refs call, TO, missed FT is crucial.

With the race so close, we are no doubt going to see a call made that just might mean the difference in a team going to the playoffs, I hope not.

In this case the Lakers lost to the Warriors the night before and the announcers were visibly upset because they slipped into a tie with the Hornets for the top spot and vowed that they had to win the game in Oakland the next night as they could not afford a 2 game losing streak not knowing exactly when Gasol would be ready. All of the top teams in the west probably have that same mentality and will play with a higher intensity. Any late minute calls will have an affect and you may see some whistles being swallowed to avoid a call and especially if the contenders are playing the bottomfeeders.

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"Once you go Barack, you never go Bak" Mario Cantone 2008