Anger and Frustration

The Nuggets have now lost two straight, this time 104-109 to the New York Knicks. I could go on and on about how the Nuggets didn't play hard enough, how they were dominated on the offensive boards in the first half, how they just didn't box out all night, how they let Al Harrington run over them, how they let New York make those threes in the second half, how they came out weak in the third quarter, how the Nuggets ended the game with 2 timeouts in a game that went down to the wire, or how the bench didn't really do a whole lot of ****. Instead, I'll place my rant on the referees.

If you didn't watch the game, then you'll look at the boxscore and see that there were about the same number of fouls called for each team. However, it was when the refs called, and more importantly didn't call, the fouls that really got me frustrated and angered. Near the end of the game, there were 3 situations in which the refs didn't make the right call. The one that stood out the most to me was the time when Melo drove and David Lee didn't get called for the foul. That would have been his sixth, and he would have been sent to the bench. The Nuggets were down 3 then, and if Melo hit the two free throws, which I'm sure that he would've, the Nuggets would have only been down by 1 and their strategy would've been different. Instead, he was able to get away with it with a smirky smile on his face. Now, I know that the Nuggets missed like 4 three-pointers after that to end the game, but the Nuggets had to foul after David Lee got that rebound, and the Knicks' lead was 5. I don't have the stats with me, but VERY FEW teams have overcome a 5 point deficit in the last several seconds of a road game.

Also, according to Travis Heath's twitter (thanks to whoever brought this up during the game thread), Eric Lewis is the guy who f***ed this up. Not that it matters...

Now, I'm not going into any conspiracy theories, but the Knicks are David Stern's favorite team. But of course that wouldn't matter, as the NBA is always fair and the referees always make the right call. It must have been pure coincidence that there were three consecutive controversial situations, as that NEVER happens in the NBA, right?

OK, sorry guys for having to go through my rant. To apologize, I will show you some random pictures after the jump.