Former NBA Ref says "Jordan's push off was an offensive foul..."

[QUOTE]August 17, 2007 -- The former head of the NBA referees union and a league official for 26 years yesterday said rogue referee Tim Donaghy was able to slip through the cracks because refereeing has gotten worse and cited the final shot of Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls career as an example where a player's reputation prevented a proper call.

Mike Mathis, who retired in 2001, said Donaghy's guilty plea in federal court to betting on games he officiated and supplying inside information to mob affiliates, came as "a stick of dynamite" to the league. But Mathis said, "another stick of dynamite should be utilized (to) clean the entire officiating office and start from scratch."

Mathis, who had been snared in the NBA officials' airline ticket scandal in the late 1990's, has been loudly critical of NBA officiating. Mathis charged too many supervisors are unqualified and that referees are hired based on who, not what, they know.

Though angrily denouncing Donaghy's actions, Mathis referenced the pivotal shot in Game 6 of the 1998 Finals by Jordan against the Utah Jazz that gave the Bulls their sixth and final championship in the Jordan era. Many observers maintain Jordan committed an offensive foul, but it was not called because of Jordan's stature and reputation.

"Refereeing has gone downhill," said Mathis, who runs the Mathis Foundation that works with and supplies scholarships for foster kids in Cincinnati. "Remember when Jordan hit that winning shot? I'm going to give you exactly what the commentators said: 'What a great move by Michael.' Was that a great move or was that an offensive foul? There was no question it was a push-off. No buts about it. The only buts you can have is, 'Well, it was Michael Jordan.' That was a defining moment.

"The video tape would never lie," Mathis said. "Here's what could have happened. The referee makes the call and it's, 'No, no. How could he do that? It was Michael Jordan.' "

If what Mathis called "funny stuff" went on in games Donaghy worked, it likely went unnoticed because of the level officiating has hit.

"(We) accept unbelievable, mediocre and bad officiating," Mathis said. "The commentator says, 'He must have seen something we didn't.' No, he didn't. It's either he's guessing, he's incompetent or there's some funny stuff going on."

Donaghy admitted to federal officials that he often supplied inside information to gamblers, alerting them to what referees were working particular games. He said he was aware how some referees interacted with certain players.

"The first thing I went through was shock," Mathis said when he learned of Donaghy's transgressions. "Then I got angry. Then I said, 'What caused this?' I'm not talking about the gambling, I'm talking about the deterioration of the refereeing that has allowed this to go undetected. . . . If he was doing the funny stuff, I'm not saying he would have been caught but we might have had a chance, because all of a sudden he's standing out by calling all these calls."[/QUOTE]

Uh oh...

[URL="http://www.nypost.com/seven/08172007/sports/former_nba_ref_blasts_officiating_sports_fred_kerber.htm"]FORMER NBA REF BLASTS OFFICIATING[/URL]

yep, I thought it was well known...

I think it's arguable, but this is the first time I've heard a ref say something like this.

in before this turns into kobe vs jordan

In my opinion, it depends on what angle you look at it from. When you look at it from the front angle, it looks like a push off. However, when you look at it from the side, it appears to be a light touch and that Russell fell down more because his momentum was heading one way and Jordan pulled back so quick that he kept going.

I think the "push off" is overstated. There was light contact, but not enough to call an offensive foul.

[QUOTE=Hardtop Hero]In my opinion, it depends on what angle you look at it from. When you look at it from the front angle, it looks like a push off. However, when you look at it from the side, it appears to be a light touch and that Russell fell down more because his momentum was heading one way and Jordan pulled back so quick that he kept going.

I think the "push off" is overstated. There was light contact, but not enough to call an offensive foul.[/QUOTE]
... and your favorite player is?

I think it was an offensive foul, but Jordan got away with it because he's Michael Jordan. Just like Bron and Wade get away with their travel's.

[QUOTE=thenextgreatbigman]in before this turns into kobe vs jordan[/QUOTE]
uh oh...umm

"Well if Kobe had taken a shot like that, they would've called him for an offensive foul and suspended him for game 7 because it was unnatural reaction."

a push off foul isnt gonna get called in that situation, period.. they are going to let the players play because there would be alot bigger issue if they had called it.. everyone would be complaining about how the refs decided the game and not the players.

When a player's momentum is carrying them one way it only takes a light shove in the same direction to keep the player going that way. It looked as though Russell could have recovered both times '97 & '98 but Jordan not only gained the advantage of an extra second or so but he also gained a bit of leverage to change direction. Either way they were some of the greatest moments in sports history 'cause he made the shot both times.

Reggie got away with it too but he was so weak he had to use two hands.

No idea how MJ's pushoff was like. Was he more aggressive or was it just normal? Any links?

[QUOTE=Agent_Zero]No idea how MJ's pushoff was like. Was he more aggressive or was it just normal? Any links?[/QUOTE]

[URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XnPnJJJhKo"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XnPnJJJhKo[/URL]

[QUOTE=MaxFly][URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XnPnJJJhKo"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XnPnJJJhKo[/URL][/QUOTE]


That looks like a foul to me. I don't think the refs would have been fair in calling that back then. Now, maybe. Star treatment could be the answer as well.

[QUOTE=StroShow4]a push off foul isnt gonna get called in that situation, period.. they are going to let the players play because there would be alot bigger issue if they had called it.. everyone would be complaining about how the refs decided the game and not the players.[/QUOTE]
not disagreeing with you but that statement illustrates how bad the thinking is in the NBA now...
you say people would be upset because an official decided the end of a game correct? but in truth, it's the player who committed the foul that has actually decided the outcome of the game, don't blame the ref for doing whats right...
but the mentality has become don't let the refs define the outcome so they swallow their whistles... but in essence they are still defing the outcome of a game because they allow a team to a cheat the rules and get away with it, only this way the wrong team wins...

it will be fun to see what all this amounts to this coming season...will the star treatment be adjusted to be more fair? with the high profile rookies coming in it would be nice to see young players get a fair shake

Looks like two fouls to me. The one where he steals the ball, as well as the shot.

I don't believe it was a push-off in the sence that without the push, he wouldn't have gotten enough space to shoot the exact same jumper.

I think he used Russell' thigh/leg as more of a ballace assist. It's arguable, of course, but to me that wasn't a push-off that warrented an offensive foul in that situation.

That's not a foul you guys are just too used to today's p*ssy-fied NBA where every damn little thing is a foul and every 2-guard relies on the refs to bail them out.

Look at this:

[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlNnLXBnMfM[/url]

Reggie Miller *clearly* pushes off Jordan there, it's a small little push, but a full on, both forearms shove into the chest that sends Jordan flying back ... no foul call.

You don't call touch falls in clutch situations, the players should decide the game.

Yeah I don't like this whole All Star calls stuff it's BS. Call the game the way it is. If you are a great player than it wouldn't matter.

[URL="http://youtube.com/watch?v=HvdcDbcZ5eg"]Is this a foul?[/URL]

regarding the play, bryon russell said:

"I've had referees come up to me and say they would have made the call , but who was going to call a push-off at that time on the greatest player to ever play the game? That night, it just felt like they werent going to let us win"


he was asserting that [U]sentimentality [/U]played a role in that the refs intuitively knew the world wanted a hollywood ending (from araton)

[I]Crashing the Borders[/I] by Harvey Araton

[QUOTE=RainierBeachPoet]regarding the play, bryon russell said:

"I've had referees come up to me and say they would have made the call , but who was going to call a push-off at that time on the greatest player to ever play the game? [B]That night, it just felt like they werent going to let us win[/B]"


he was asserting that [U]sentimentality [/U]played a role in that the refs intuitively knew the world wanted a hollywood ending (from araton)

[I]Crashing the Borders[/I] by Harvey Araton[/QUOTE]

While that is his opinion, you never want players to feel that way. :confusedshrug:

Russell is full of crap ... he's 6'7 200-pound man and goes flying like a rag doll from a little contact? He slipped himself on the floor to boot.

The Jazz lost because they didn't deserve to win. Karl Malone chokes *again* in the clutch by just dangling the ball out there for anyone to steal it.

They had Pippen hobbling around like an arthritic old man and no other Bulls but Jordan really playing well in '98 and still could not get the job done.

On top of the fact IMO it's pretty obvious some over zealous Jazz fans/Utah citizens gave Jordan food poisoning in 1997. He shows up to Utah for a pivotal game and "mysteriously" gets an extremely violent case of food poisoning after eating some hotel food .... yeah ... that's not suspicious at all.

I have zero symphathy for the Jazz. They had ample oppurtunities/lucky breaks in 97 and 98 to win and still blew it.

In the clutch you do not call every little damn touch foul, there is some contact allowed (on both ends). Look at Reggie Miller shoving Jordan very clearly in the same 1998 playoffs .... no foul on Reggie. THAT is a push off ... that was far more direct contact than Jordan/Russell.

[quote=Kobe24][URL="http://youtube.com/watch?v=HvdcDbcZ5eg"]Is this a foul?[/URL][/quote]
No not really. Roy embellished a bit.

[QUOTE=StroShow4]a push off foul isnt gonna get called in that situation, period.. they are going to let the players play because there would be alot bigger issue if they had called it.. everyone would be complaining about how the refs decided the game and not the players.[/QUOTE]


then why was Dirk called for blocking when Wade stiff armed him in the last minute of Game 6?

The refs are simply too inconsistent to defend them. You can't say a foul is not a foul b/c its late in the game and to let the players play and you can't call one thing on one side and then ignore the exact same crap on the other end. Thats what NBA refs do and thats why everyone says they suck ass. Stern needs to get his head out of his ass and fix this. But he wont. He is too prideful to admit Cuban has been right all along that the refs are bad.

[QUOTE=RainierBeachPoet]regarding the play, bryon russell said:

"I've had referees come up to me and say they would have made the call , but who was going to call a push-off at that time on the greatest player to ever play the game? That night, it just felt like they werent going to let us win"


he was asserting that [U]sentimentality [/U]played a role in that the refs intuitively knew the world wanted a hollywood ending (from araton)

[I]Crashing the Borders[/I] by Harvey Araton[/QUOTE]

Anyone other than me also remember Howard Eisley's three-pointer at the end of the first half which was waved off, but which should've counted earlier that very same game?

[QUOTE=ThaRegul8r]Anyone other than me also remember Howard Eisley's three-pointer at the end of the first half which was waved off, but which should've counted earlier that very same game?[/QUOTE]

This type of stuff happens in every ... single ... basketball game though. It happens in baseball, it happens in hockey, it happens in football, etc. etc. if you sit back afterwards and review every single play in slo-motion after the fact, sure you can probably find plays in every game that have missed calls. Odds are there were calls that went against the Bulls also.

For the Jazz to cry conspiracy is laughable. They had many lucky breaks and bounces in both the 1997 and 1998 Finals and could not seal the deal.

The Jordan push was incidental contact at best, even in a regular season game in the 1st quarter there's a pretty fair chance that would not have been called. Looking at the play, Russell was already off-balance and scrambling.

If you want to a clear, unmistakable push off look at Reggie Miller vs. Jordan in the 1998 ECF just a few weeks prior.

it was on offensive foul but MJ owns the NBA during that time so who would complain, anybody who thinks its not knows nothing about hoops.

Officiating of NBA games has to have an overhaul after the Donaghy scandal. For there to be consistency, it would be preferable if NBA refs didn't swallow their whistles in the closing minutes or a game. A ref will have to draw the line at some point anyhow. Bruce Bowen's foul on LeBron James' 3 point attempt in the Finals is a good example. That was clearly a foul at any other point in the game. But if refs aren't calling these touch fouls, why are they calling others at the end of close games in the playoffs.

Another play involving Bruce Bowen comes to my mind. When he was called for a foul while guarding Dirk Nowitzki during the 2006 playoffs. The one where Bowen yelled at David Stern "This is terrible!" That's a touchy foul to call at the end of a close playoff game. And there have been numerous others.

Anyhow, there's a lot of inconistency. There always will be some because it is a difficult job. But they can definitely improve things.

There probably is some star treatment, too. Allen Iverson palming the ball during his crossover is a good example. It's not a conspiracy, though. Great players get this sort of subconscious treatment on things they do well. But refs need to try to counteract this natural tendecy.

LOL, looking at it again, there isn't even a pushing motion on Jordan's part. It was some contact with Jordan stopping on Russell's butt (lol), but Russell slipped on his own. Russell was already beat on the play, the moment you turn your body like that, you have to stop to face up again.

The Jazz were stupid for not double teaming in that situation anyway, 1-on-1, did they seriously think Russell was going to be able to stop Jordan from getting a shot off? In a 1-on-1 situation, lets face it, Jordan is able to get his shot off just about against anyone, and doubly stupid to the Jazz for basically giving Jordan the entire middle of the floor to work with.

That's not a foul, if you're going to call that, you have to call basically any type of physical contact, which is ridiculous.

I'll just repost several posts on this that I made on another board a couple of weeks ago since I don't feel like wasting more time. Hopefully people can grasp the context of the remarks I was replying to without seeing them:


[quote=Loki]

Watch the play from the normal game angle at normal speed and anyone with an intuitive understanding of physics and momentum can see that whatever Jordan did was most certainly [b]not[/b] responsible for Russell's reaction. Jordan had his [i]inner wrist[/i] on Russell's [i]lower butt[/i] for a whole 1 second -- he had neither the angle (of pressure applied) nor the time necessary to generate the force it would take to send a 220 pound man flying, unless Jordan is the world's strongest man. Add to that the fact that after Jordan removed his hand Russell still took another step [i]and then[/i] fell, and it doesn't add up.


Honestly, I defy anyone who has played ball at a high level (most of whom have an intuitive sense of momentum/natural physics) to watch that play from the normal game angle at normal speed and tell me that Jordan's placing his hand on Russell was responsible for the fall. Go ahead and tell me.


It's bogus. Yeah, when you watch the super slow-mo replay, where it looks like Jordan's hand is on Russell's behind for a good 10 seconds (which would be necessary to generate the force needed to push a man of Russell's size from that angle), it may seem that way, but no. Just no.[/quote]

[quote=Loki]The reason your fraction-of-a-second punch "works" (i.e., can move a large mass) and Jordan's inner wrist touch doesn't is because you are generating a far greater impulse. Impulse, the integral of a force with respect to time, can be increased by increasing the duration of applied force or increasing the force (measured in Newtons) itself. When you punch someone, you're doing the latter -- increasing the force applied.

You're imparting a far greater force and therefore generating a far greater impulse despite a lesser duration of contact. That's why you can move someone in a small amount of time and Jordan couldn't have.


Maybe if Jordan wound up and swung and followed through, yeah, but that's not what he did. In fact, Jordan's hand never even came more than halfway across his own body, which is a further indictment of the "push-off" theory. I'll let you try to figure out why -- I'm not here to teach.
[/quote]

[quote=Loki]Again, I'd venture to guess that anyone who has played ball at a high level would be able to tell that there's no way Jordan generated the force necessary to cause that reaction in the manner it occurred. I say this because high-level ball players have an intuitive understanding of natural physics and momentum gained from years of observing and interacting with other moving bodies.[/quote]

[quote=Loki]Also, with respect to the final point, note that Russell [I]still took another step[/I] after Jordan removed his hand and only [B]then[/B] lost his balance. Russell's center of mass was still directly above his legs (not out in front of him, which is what caused him to fall) when Jordan removed his hand. So unless Jordan can not only generate [B]tremendous[/B] force with his inner wrist in one second's time, but also then get all Jedi and continue imparting that force [B]after[/B] he's removed his hand, then his "push" wasn't responsible for Russell's reaction.[/quote]

[quote=Loki]When did I ever say that? Jordan and many players give the pat on the butt to make sure that they've cleared the offensive player on a change of direction move. His hand was obviously [B]there[/B] -- how could one deny that? What I deny is that he could have posibly imparted enough force to cause the reaction we witnessed. [/quote]


[quote=Loki]Yet the upper half of his hand isn't cupped inward as one would expect if one were trying to exert maximum force. His fingers are loose and pointed outward. If you're pushing something with the face of your hand, don't you try to place your hand flush on the surface and then push with every part of your hand rather than trying to push with only the bottom half of your hand and inner wrist?


So Jordan not only exerted a huge force on Russell in one second or less, he did so without his arm/hand crossing more than a third of the way across his own body (as would be necessary to generate the requisite force), and did it with only 40-60% of his hand exerting said force. He also was able to do this despite his hand being below Russell's center of mass. Michael Jordan: World's Strongest Man.[/quote]

:oldlol: LOCO's desperate. Talking about "intuitive sense of physics":roll: Herb. Russell fell AFTER Jordan made contact. As for your whole "Jordan not having enough time/force" theory, when the player is ALREADY MOVING AT GREAT SPEED like Russell was during an NBA game, it's A LOT EASIER to knock them off balance/effect their momentum.

Oh wow, it's an eliteballer sighting! Eveyone wave at eliteballer. "Hi eliteballer."

You can crawl back in your hole now. I know of what I speak. I'd like to imagine that anyone who's played ball at a high level has this intuitive grasp of what moving bodies can and cannot do, but perhaps I overestimate people's intelligence.

Only a retard would say that it was anything but pushing off. It was obvious.
BUT, as Russell himself graciously said, "it was not a foul because they did not call it."

oh, and it was one of those down-to-the-last-second situations where refs are taught to swallow the whistle.

You don't know jack shiet, otherwise you would have a retort. Russell's body already contorted and moving at great speed=easy to knock off balance. Your theory=shot:pimp:

Look like a foul to me.

But the plays history....Jordan won.

Kobe wouldn't have pushed off.

Jordan got away with too much. That ref spoke the truth. Consequently, expect his dead body floating somewhere, courtesy of David Stern.

Of course it was a foul. I cant believe this is even discussed these days. Like 99% of the sports world knew it was a foul the first time they saw a replay.

It happens. Jordan himself implied it was not only a foul but an intentional foul at that calling attention to how veteran tricks get players by when the issue of that play was brought up in an interview(was a few months ago).

He pushed off simple and plain. I didnt care then I dont care now. Wasnt the first time a guy pushed off on a big shot. Reggie rushed off MJ to make the game winner in the ECF one year.

I honestly can't believe that anyone who watches that play at normal speed from the normal game angle (as opposed to super slow-mo from behind Jordan's back) can think that the supposed "push" is what caused that reaction. Especially in light of the points I raised on the previous page.

And I always wonder why people harp on it so much when Reggie's two-handed hard push of Jordan to clear space for the game-winner in the ECF that year was so much more blatant.

[QUOTE=Kblaze8855]Reggie rushed off MJ to make the game winner in the ECF one year.[/QUOTE]


Ironically, it was the same year.