Yao’s return spoiled by bad no-call from refs
Tuesday, March 6th, 2007
by John
Yao throws one down in Cleveland Monday night in his first game back from a leg injury in 32 games. He scored 16 points, grabbed 11 boards and blocked two shots, but a controversial no-call against him was the deciding factor in a 91-85 loss. Click here for photos from Yao’s pre-game activities, and here and here for photos from the game.
As great as it was to see Yao Ming return to the court Monday night and score 16 points, grab 11 boards, and block 2 shots (close to my prediction of 17 points, 9 boards and 2 blocks), it also brought back some not-so-great memories – seeing Yao get physically abused and the refs not calling fouls against his defender(s).
It happened again in Cleveland, this time in a crucial part of the game. The score was tight: 86-82 on the Rockets’ end of the court with 1:02 remaining. Yao had grabbed a long rebound around the free throw line, took one dribble toward an undefended basket, and had a great chance of scoring.
That’s when Cleveland center Zydrunas Ilgauskas threw his body in front of Yao with a half-hearted attempt to swipe the ball away. Ilgauskas fell to the floor in front of Yao in what the Cleveland TV announcer described as an NFL-like “chop block” (which is illegal, by the way), and forced Yao to topple to the court and lose possession of the ball. Thank God that Yao was able to fall and avoid landing on his rehabilitated knee.
However, no foul was called. Instead, play continued, Cleveland pushed the ball up the court and LeBron James capped off the fast break with an alley-oop slam to make the score 88-82 with 57 seconds remaining, which was too big of a deficit for the Rockets to overcome.
It’s only fitting that Yao’s return to action would remind us of how little respect he still gets from the refs. Yao even said after the game that it was a bad no-call, but he wasn’t going to contest it because he knew the team couldn’t afford for him to get a technical foul. That no-call was incompetence at its finest. Just as ridiculous was LeBron saying after the game that “it was a great steal.”
I’m so frustrated, I could rant for paragraphs about it, but I’ll move on.
Yao throws one down in Cleveland Monday night in his first game back from a leg injury in 32 games. He scored 16 points, grabbed 11 boards and blocked two shots, but a controversial no-call against him was the deciding factor in a 91-85 loss. Click here for photos from Yao’s pre-game activities, and here and here for photos from the game.As great as it was to see Yao Ming return to the court Monday night and score 16 points, grab 11 boards, and block 2 shots (close to my prediction of 17 points, 9 boards and 2 blocks), it also brought back some not-so-great memories – seeing Yao get physically abused and the refs not calling fouls against his defender(s).
It happened again in Cleveland, this time in a crucial part of the game. The score was tight: 86-82 on the Rockets’ end of the court with 1:02 remaining. Yao had grabbed a long rebound around the free throw line, took one dribble toward an undefended basket, and had a great chance of scoring.
That’s when Cleveland center Zydrunas Ilgauskas threw his body in front of Yao with a half-hearted attempt to swipe the ball away. Ilgauskas fell to the floor in front of Yao in what the Cleveland TV announcer described as an NFL-like “chop block” (which is illegal, by the way), and forced Yao to topple to the court and lose possession of the ball. Thank God that Yao was able to fall and avoid landing on his rehabilitated knee.
However, no foul was called. Instead, play continued, Cleveland pushed the ball up the court and LeBron James capped off the fast break with an alley-oop slam to make the score 88-82 with 57 seconds remaining, which was too big of a deficit for the Rockets to overcome.
It’s only fitting that Yao’s return to action would remind us of how little respect he still gets from the refs. Yao even said after the game that it was a bad no-call, but he wasn’t going to contest it because he knew the team couldn’t afford for him to get a technical foul. That no-call was incompetence at its finest. Just as ridiculous was LeBron saying after the game that “it was a great steal.”
I’m so frustrated, I could rant for paragraphs about it, but I’ll move on.
