Posted by TheGame:
Posted by joec32033:
Posted by TheGame:
To me the whole running up the score thing is separate from the foul on J.R. I think the primary reason that J.R. got fouled the way he did was because of his reverse dunk a few moments earlier. That was separate from the whole issue of whether Karl was running up the score. I don't think Karl should have been trying to run up the score and I have no doubt that was a factor in his decision to leave his starters in, but I am not going to give a hard foul just because you are a starter and are still in the game. I will give a hard foul if you are out there showboating and trying to show us up when the game has already been decided.
This P.O.V brings up a whole new direction about the situation. Because, from the way I am reading this, you are talking about hurting a player intentionally to show the coach up. This is a whole new ball game looking at it like this.
My point is slightly different. It is not the players role to show up the coach. Anthony and J.R. Smith have little control over whether Karl keeps them in the game (well they could ask out but practically speaking, the coach controls who plays), so as a player, I cannot really get upset if JR is still out there. But it was clear at that point that the Nuggets had won, JR should not be further embarassing us by doing reverse dunks and most players would not have done that in that situation. They would have made a simple play or pulled up to run out the clock. As a player, I would probably be offended by that and I would make damn sure JR would not be getting any more dunks. I would not try to hurt JR but I would stop him from dunking and make sure he knew that his actions were not appreciated.
I can respect that, but the flip side to me is, are the Knicks going to foul and try to stop the clock? See this is the flipside to the whole giving up running out the clock thing. I personally don't believe the Knicks gave up (based soley on the personel that was still on the floor). This is the point Blue was trying to make with the whole towel thing, I think. The score was out of reach, but we had Mardy, Lee, Jefferies, Channing and Nate Robinson out there. If we gave up we would have had Mardy, Balkman, Cato, Malik, and maybe a guy like Nate to just play that two guard spot. At least that is how I look at it.
What happens if the winning team does let up and all of a sudden, the other team does make a run-however unlikely it may be? It does happen. And the lineup we had in is the lineup that quickly made up 16 points of a 26 point deficit in a short time.
I'm just saying, the winning team has no right of letting up if the losing team is showing no signs of giving up.
