I am sick to death ofwatching great playoff D against Kobe resulting in foul calls against Thunder players .Harden was the victim of three horrible Kobe HALO rule fouls in game 3 and nobody can convince me Bryant is not getting preferential treatment.If superstar staus applys , why isn't KD given the same ? Game four was much of the same LA hammers on Harden,KD,Westbrook with minimal foul calls and we breathe on KB and he goes to the line.Best revenge? Win anyhow but it is frustating to see such blatant favoritism. I will grudingly give the refs credit,we are allowed to D up Kobe in the last two minutes of the game.
It's not flopping that's the problem, it's whenever Harden challeged a shot of Kobe's, made no contact at all, or if there was contact it was Harden's hand contacting the ball, resulting in foul calls on him.
As a Nuggets fan, I've seen the Lakers a lot in the play-offs, and it's been that way since Kobe became an All-Star. It seems the league has a special no-contact rule for him. That may sound like sour grapes, but I've watched it happen in the play-offs for years.
Yeah, I saw the two on Harden where he didn't touch Kobe. Those were bad. The ones where Kobe was being bear-hugged and semi-"flopped" weren't bad. The refs have let the Thunder get way too physical on defense. I understand why Thunder fans have gotten upset with some of this officiating, but they'd have felt the same way if they were cheering for the Lakers. The officiating has been downright bad in this series (both ways), and it's changed the outcome in some games. Game 1 was a blowout, Game 2 the Lakers outplayed OKC but Kobe threw away the game in the last two minutes, Game 3 was pretty evenly played and a little help from the refs allowed LA to pull it out, and then in Game 4 the Lakers clearly outplayed Thunder but the Thunder pulled off a comeback that they couldn't have pulled off without the finishing touches off the refs (see plays such as Westbrook's And-1 layup and when Kobe was knocked to the floor without a call which knocked the ball away and led to a fastbreak where Super-Horn drew a foul with much less contact). We'll see how the officiating goes in game 5, but the early edge looks to be in OKC's favor. As I post this, Bynum, the best center in the NBA and LA's franchise player, just got a hilariously bad 3rd foul call...
