The Rockets Have Reason To Be Upset About No Calls In Game 1, But Not On James Harden’s Final Shot

Nobody really enjoys flopping or embellishing contact, but the dirty secret of the NBA is that everybody does it. Your favorite team, your favorite player, that one team you despise? They all do it. Of course, nobody is as blatant about it being a part of their game plan as the Rockets.

Houston’s offense is as well known for it’s gaming the system to try and get to the line as much as possible as it is for anything else. They want efficient shots and free throws are one of the three most efficient shots in basketball, along with threes and layups. It makes sense, and the reason they’re best known for that is their star and reigning MVP is better at getting to the line than anyone else.

So when the Rockets lost to the Warriors in Game 1 104-100 on Sunday, it was hard for many fans to feel sorry for them as something odd happened. Those calls that Houston usually gets weren’t going the Rockets way. To be specific. The Rockets were seeing number of landing calls on three-pointers not go in their direction. When the Warriors went to contest James Harden on 3-pointers it was not uncommon to see players close out hard and then not giving him the proper space to land. He was frequently contacted low on the shot.

Now, did Harden embellish some of this contact and unnecessarily hit the floor as a result? Absolutely. It’s what he does. He wants the ref to be sure they know he had contact on his shot. The problem is the referees don’t like to feel tricked and with how often the Rockets scream and complain they’re not going to get the benefit of the doubt from those same refs. It’s hard to feel sorry for them, and you don’t have to, but in this case, the Rockets have every reason to be furious with some of the contact that went uncalled.

As the game progressed, the Rockets became more incensed by a lack of these calls and sought them out with even more flamboyant efforts to prove (or create) contact. This example involving Chris Paul resulted in two technical fouls from the complaining that followed.

https://twitter.com/HoustonRockets/status/1122613918889721856

This was a far more difficult situation than some of the others, given the way Paul shifts his butt in midair to initiate some contact, but it seemed to be the result of the Rockets feeling like they’d been cheated out of free throws they should be getting. There were a number of examples of these types of plays and none of them went the way of the Rockets. Harden probably got the brunt of it as Klay Thompson lived in his landing space.

https://twitter.com/HoustonRockets/status/1122599239383535616
As if destined, those no calls became part of the story on the final possession as James Harden swung his legs out and crashed to the floor on a game tying attempt in the final seconds. Draymond Green made contact on the closeout, but, like the rest of the game, it didn’t get called. Funny enough, of all the calls Houston felt they were robbed of, this is the one that felt like it really wasn’t a case of the defender coming in too deep. Harden didn’t go through an entirely natural shooting motion and his feet land inside the 3-point arc. In this case, it was a correct no call.

But like the no call on Paul, it was a case of a constantly building narrative that eventually boiled over. The Rockets were furious about this call not going their way, because they felt they had been short changed on that call all afternoon. Paul was so furious about it that he earned himself a second technical, and ejection, right as the game came to a close.

There’s reason for Houston to be frustrated, because it does seem as though the way these situations were called all regular season was not how they were interpreted in this game. It’s especially a problem when it’s been well established at this point that not allowing players to land is incredibly dangerous for NBA players.

Ironically, the emphasis on a player having space to land really came to the forefront in a previous Warriors series. San Antonio Spurs fans are still wondering what if had Kawhi Leonard not landed on Zaza Pachulia’s foot in 2017.

Nobody is asking for sympathy for the Rockets not getting calls, particularly on situations like the final play where it seems clear Harden throws his legs out to create the contact. That said, there were legitimate gripes to be had over the way these plays were ruled on by the refs throughout the game, even if a few of the examples Rockets fans and players will point to were much closer to 50-50 calls. Referees have a tremendously difficult job figuring out what’s a real foul and what’s not in an NBA game, but to completely allow this kind of contact is dangerous for the players and they’ll have to figure out how to find that balance.

Harden spoke on that after the game, noting the Kawhi incident and asking for a “fair chance.”

We’ll see if anything changes for Game 2 from the officiating, but you can bet Houston will approach things the same way.