No Chris Bosh Equals No Respect for Toronto Raptors from the NBA's Referees

Warning, Rant on NBA Refereeing.

In both of the Toronto Raptors' last two games and, to a lesser extent, versus the Cavaliers, the Raptors have been getting hosed by the referees.

That’s not to say the Raptors played well in those two road losses. Clearly, the Raptors got off to slow starts and showed little fortitude as the games progressed. But some of that poor play was caused by uneven calls from the NBA’s referees.

And whether David Stern wants to admit it or not, the NBA is refereed with an obvious “star” and team expectations bias.

The Raptors without Chris Bosh do not have an established star player to attract foul calls for them. And the Raptors are not one of the “favored” teams when it comes to promoting the league.

One only has to watch NBA-TV to see where the league places the Raptors in terms of importance.  Sometimes it really looks like the league actually forgets about the team north of the border. Okay, they seem to forget about a few other teams as well, but I’ll admit to not paying that much attention to them either.

Based on the NBA’s coverage, one might think the Grizzlies and Rockets were in the playoffs and Heat was still a dark-horse contender. The Raptors could be in 29th spot based on the NBA’s highlight coverage.

At home against the Cavaliers, the Whine and Gold used referee intimidation to permit Andersen Varejao to get to the offensive glass. And while Varejao did foul out in only 23 minutes of play, every offensive board he collected involved physically shoving a Raptors player out of his way.

No such leniency was given to the Raptors at the other end of the floor.

And while LBJ, like virtually every star player, was getting soft foul calls that sent him to the line 16 times, the Raptors were not. One could see Calderon’s obvious frustration after getting hit in the head on a drive with no call.

In a game where the foul calls were 25 Cavaliers and 26 Raptors, the Cavaliers were the far more physical team. Somehow the Cavaliers ended up with 11 more free throw attempts than the Raptors and they did little to deserve the discrepancy.

At least Jay Triano did his best to stand up for his players by trying to out-yell Mike Brown.  But Mike must be taking lessons from Doc Rivers.

On the road against the Thunder, those early “steals” were on very aggressive plays by OKC with no calls.  But the Raptors found themselves sending the Thunder to the foul line on every touch.

And losing Turkoglu to early first quarter foul calls that were not being made on OKC did more than just take Turkoglu out of the game, it took the rest of the Raptors players off their game as well.

As is often the case in the NBA, the final foul count of 25 Thunder, 23 Raptors was not indicative of how the game was called.

The Thunder went to the free throw line nine more times than the Raptors. Plus, 12 of the fouls called against the Thunder came in the fourth quarter with the Thunder up by 24 points and the game effectively over.

In Houston, letting the Rockets shoot 10-10 to start wasn’t the referees fault.  The Raptors put up little defense and the hot Rockets were up 22-8 before the Raptors knew what hit them.

But the Raptors got back to within six points before this game got away.

Andrea Bargnani also had a hot start with 14 points in the first quarter. But his first made three-pointer summed up just how much help he could be expecting from the referees on this night. After clearly being bumped going up for that tough and lucky three-pointer, the referees signaled Bargnani wasn’t going to be drawing any fouls this night.

Bargnani was hit a lot in this game. Most of his misses were caused by bumps that the referees chose to ignore. When no one else is scoring and the referees let the defense abuse your best shooter, it is going to be a long night.

As much as Andrea Bargnani couldn’t get a call, it was worse for the Raptors rookie DeMar DeRozan. On three occasions DeRozan was knocked to the ground on lay-ups by a defender (Shane Battier) standing in the restricted area. DeMar DeRozan wasn’t given even one free throw attempt in this game.

The game ended with the fouls 23 Houston, 27 Raptors and Houston picked up nine of those fouls in the fourth quarter when neither team had any starters left on the floor.

It seems this season is going to set a record for fines to coaches and players complaining about the referees. There doesn’t seem to a week that goes by without someone being fined for speaking their mind.

And the complainers are right!  This season, the refereeing has been as inconsistent or consistently bad as it has ever been!

And without Bosh in the lineup, the Raptors will continue to get  ZERO respect from the NBA’s referees.