James Capers Jason Phillips Zachary Zarba All inexperienced. Not sure if that's good or bad. I'm leaning toward bad.
Inexperienced = young? If so, could be good because they wont have built up grudges or the ego of the old vet refs to make the game about them.
Define inexperienced. James Capers is in his 19th season, Zarba his 11th, and Phillips his 16th, I believe. Seems like a good amount of experience there. Over 2700 games reffed between the 3 of them.
They might not be the "household" names of Foster, Crawford, etc., but that's a good thing. Shouldn't know who the refs are. I know all of them, but not in a oh, shit, Foster's going to fuck us sort of way. Just have heard the names announced.
http://www.oddsshark.com/nba/referee-handicapping-statistics You can find a few stats about the refs on that webpage and nothing about those three sticks out as "haha were secretly screwing you". If these refs start calling flops we gotta start flopping as well, can't let the flops get you out of the rhythm of your game or its going to look a lot like the GSW/Clippers game where GSW just looked confused on how to deal with the refs calling flops.
If we come out doing what we do. Executing, rebounding and making the proper in game adjustments, it's all moot.
All we have to do is look at what happened with Golden State in Game Two. They were getting jobbed and they quit playing. As a result, they were embarrassed by the Clips and now LAC has the mental advantage going into Game Three. We're going to have to react differently than did the Warriors. There's a good chance it will be a flop-a-thon on one end and nothing but uncalled elbows to the gut on the other. We have to persevere. The refs can job us, they can put us in foul trouble, but they don't have the power to stop us from playing our game or to keep fighting. I think Houston looks at us and is a bit demoralized. They were up on us double digits in the second and fourth quarters, and we kept coming back. Most other teams would have rolled over and died. We didn't. We were down six in OT and came back. We lost LA and Lillard took over. If we keep up that fight, I think Houston isn't mentally strong enough to keep fighting back. The best teams play like the opponent doesn't matter. We don't adjust to them, we force them to adjust to us. And if the foul calls get out of control, then Stotts needs to pull a Popovich and get himself tossed. Triano or Vanterpool need to be prepared to step up. Bottom line, I think we're ready.
Mentally strong teams persevere. We did in game 1. While the last two days Houston has been focusing on the calls and placing the blame of their loss on the officiating. We have been focused on us and what we need to do to dismantle an already fragile Houston team.
For their careers, in games they have reffed, the home team has a winning % of .604 for Phillips(.005 above average), Capers at .621 (.051 above average), and Zarba .547 (.105 BELOW average). xObviously, the averages are different for each ref, since they have reffed a different amount of seasons. In the playoffs, Zarba is .12 above average, Caper .01 above, and Phillips -.001. For FTA, home versus road, in the playoffs, home teams are a +1.7 for Phillis, which is 1.3 below average, for his career. Capers, +4.4, which is 2.1 above average Zarba, +1.0, which is 2.0 BELOW average. Personal fouls called, home minus visitor, and above/below average: Zarba:-.9(visitors .9 more fouls per game called). .9 above average. Capers -2.6, 1.0 BELOW average Phillips -.9, .9 above average.
It's weird, but I think we finally have the mentally stronger team in a playoff matchup. While we fans can whine about refs all we want (it's our right!), it's the players who matter. And Damian has the right mental model. Don't get too upset. Don't get too excited. Do your work, shine under the lights, and mean mug when you win. I don't think he'll let us lose this series, if it's at all in his control.
Seems to me many of our fans, not out players, but a lot of our fans are already looking at the refs as a built in excuse for game 2.
Cool numbers. Repped. I think as long as we stay with our gameplan and don't let the side antics get in our head, we'll be fine.
Not me. I think the biggest difference will be that I don't expect Harden to shoot that badly from outside again.
