I finally brought myself to watch this game on replay (sober) after watching from
@huskies92 's courtside seats (Thank you Saint Skinner). I was so angry with the way the game was called that I couldn't sleep until late into the night.
Most upsetting calls in order:
1: The intentional foul on Terrence. It was the same exact scenario as the first half when boat picked Tyus Jones' pocket and had a clear path. In that scenario Jones reaches out and grabs Boatright and its a 1 and 1, but in the 2nd half, its an intentional foul. It also isn't even a rule anymore.
2: The foul on Facey for going straight up and making contact with Jones' extending forearm.
3: Jones' off ball flop ~2.30 mark in the 2nd half. Purvis was denying him the ball and he was getting frustrated. Purvis had his arms extended on the trip. Jones run's into his arm's twice (using the bazz head fake) without getting the call before full on diving to the floor on screening action off ball. It's disgusting.
4: Amida's 5th foul. I thought it was a travel live but it was just Okafor's clever footwork. However if you can watch that play and tell me where the foul I'll be shocked. The only contact on the play was Okafor shoving Amida in the chest for clearance. You would think the officials would give him some respect given that...
5: His 3rd and 4th fouls were also BS. I understand the block charge call in the first half. I understand him getting his second foul for dropping his extended arms on Okafor. His 3rd foul was getting tangled off ball in a back screen in the paint where Winslow puts 2 hands on his back and he gets a hand on Okafor's waste. It was 16 min into the 2nd half when he sat the entire first in foul trouble, there was no reason for that whistle. It was ticky tack bull. And his 4th foul he's moving his feet well and Okafor is just bull charging him. His right arm is down by his waste but not extended. His left arm is straight up and does not make contact. It was as good as he could play defensively. Amida was robbed of his opportunity to show how he could play against Okafor in the second half.
6: Okafor should have picked up his 2nd foul with 8 min left in the first half. He made a big to big pass to Jefferson in the paint before plowing over Phil (again). The ref's didn't blow the whistle.
7: Terrence's full court press hand check. Ollie's reaction said it all.
Do I think we should have won this game? No. But Duke shot like crap from 3. We turned them over 19 times and we capitalized on a lot of those turnovers into points. We outscored them by 10 in the paint. We out shot them from the floor. We got into the lane "at will" according to Bilas. We we're not settling for jump shots. Facey got creamed with the body on one of his layups on one end and that kind of contact was a foul all day on the other. I thought we executed our gameplan damn near perfection. We deserved to be within a punchers shot of them and never got that chance.
We're getting better and I'm encouraged by the performance and think we'll continue to build on it but this was not an evenly called game.
Ken Pomeroy@kenpomeroy