Gasol's Goaltending

I have always been under the impression that if a defensive player touched the rim during a shot, it was goaltending. Let's see what the league says:

RULE NO. 11-BASKETBALL INTERFERENCE-GOALTENDING
Section I-A Player Shall Not:
a. Touch the ball or the basket ring when the ball is using the basket ring as its lower base.
EXCEPTION: If a player near his own basket has his hand legally in contact with the ball, it is not a violation if his contact with the ball continues after the ball enters the cylinder, or if, in such action, he touches the basket.
b. Touch the ball when it is above the basket ring and within the imaginary cylinder.
c. For goaltending to occur, the ball, in the judgment of the official, must have a chance to score.
d. During a field goal attempt, touch a ball after it has touched any part of the backboard above ring level, whether the ball is considered on its upward or downward flight.
e. During a field goal attempt, touch a ball after it has touched the backboard below the ring level and while the ball is on its upward flight.
f. Trap the ball against the face of the backboard. (To be a trapped ball, three elements must exist simultaneously. The hand, the ball and the backboard must all occur at the same time. A batted ball against the backboard is not a trapped ball.)
g. Touch any live ball from within the playing area that is on its downward flight with an opportunity to touch the basket ring. This is considered to be a "field goal attempt" or trying for a goal.
h. Touch the ball at any time with a hand which is through the basket ring.
i. Vibrate the rim or backboard so as to cause the ball to make an
unnatural bounce. [Emphasis mine]

That's what I thought. The refs missed Howard's similar--and more egregious--goaltending earlier in the game. All things being equal, though, in the above photo, Gasol's clearly touching the rim, which, according to the league rules, is goaltending. Would Lee's shot have fallen if Gasol hadn't hit the rim? Maybe, maybe not. It certainly had a good chance of going in: hell, every fan in the country thought Lee had stolen the game. I certainly did, and, judging from Kobe's reaction in the above photo, he certainly thought so, too. In the end, the refs swallowed their whistles, and probably cost the Magic the game, and the series.

That, and Van Gundy's decision to play J.J. Redick 27 minutes.

(UPDATE: Phil Jackson confirms it. “Yeah, he got his hand caught in the rim in that one, no doubt about it,” Jackson said. “It's called basket interference is what it's called. Even if you hit the net supposedly in the process that's part of it, but that rule is kind of archaic. It isn't called in this day and age as much, but when we were in high school that was something a high school ref might call, basket interference. According to the rules [the right call] was not [made]. It wasn't made."

Win or Lose, Patrick Ewing Is Going to Be Disappointed

Patrick Ewing is one of my favorite professional athletes of all time. I grew up during his heyday with the Knicks. I watched him, each year, come tantalizingly close to breaking through against Michael Jordan and the Bulls. Finally, in 1994, while Jordan was off trying his hand at baseball, Ewing led the Knicks past the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference Championship, putting up an amazing 24 points, 22 rebounds, 7 assists and 5 blocks in the decisive Game 7. A few weeks later, despite jumping out to a 3-1 series lead, Ewing and the Knicks ended up on the wrong side of Hakeem Olajuwan's Houston Rockets in the Finals. Later, in 1999, Ewing, out with a partially torn Achilles tendon, was forced to watch from the sidelines, as the Knicks, behind Allan Houston, Latrell Sprewell, Larry Johnson and Marcus Camby, made their improbable run to the Finals. That Knicks team lost in five games to the San Antonio Spurs, another goddam team from Texas. In his professional career, Ewing was 0-2 in the Finals. 

Like Charles Barkley, Karl Malone and John Stockton, Ewing's quest for a championship ended badly. To this day, Ewing is widely considered one of the greatest basketball players never to have won a ring, a dissonant, unforgiving list of Hall of Fame talents who came up short, a list that grows longer each passing year. As a fan, this remains my biggest disappointment in sports. Patrick, as he was known around my household, should have won. At least twice. The fact that he didn't continues to wrankle, even today. 

It seems to be messing with the Big Fella, too.  Yesterday, Ewing, now an assistant coach with the Eastern Conference Champion Orlando Magic, had this to say about the prospect of winning it all. "It means a lot," he said. "A player, coach, winning a championship means a lot. That will shut everybody up. Everyone who says I don't have one, it will shut them up when I do have one."

Does he really believe this? Could capturing an elusive championship as a coach possibly be as satisfying to Ewing as it would have been if he had delivered a ring to New York as its franchise player? Does Ewing really think an Orlando victory would separate him from the likes of Barkley and Malone? I'm sorry, Patrick, but this just isn't the case. If the Magic win it all, I'm sure Dwight Howard would be more than happy to credit Ewing with his inevitable development as a player. I'm sure, too, that Stan Van Gundy would continue to put in a good word for Ewing around the league as a possible head coaching candidate. But, ultimately, if the Magic go on to beat the Lakers, bragging rights would belong, almost exclusively, to the players, head coach and general manager, just as it always has, and just as it should remain. Ewing's championship contributions, on the other hand, will be noted, rather unceremoniously, somewhere between 12th-man Jeremy Richardson and Tom Smith, the Magic's athletic trainer.   

Deconstructing Dwight

Like a lot of people, I haven't been particularly impressed with Dwight Howard's offensive game, particularly in the playoffs. Sure, he's an absolute beast, with shoulders approximately the size of my waste, but his offensive game is still limited to put backs, dunks and other high-percentage shots. Despite learning at the broken-down knees of Patrick Ewing, one of basketball's greatest jump-shooting centers in the history of the league, Howard can't play with his back to the basket, or more than 8 feet from the rim. Kendrik Perkins has done an admirable job of shutting him down on the low blocks, and, at times, even outmuscling the hulking Howard out of position, or forcing him into some terrible shots. 

I find it funny, then, that Howard wants the offense to run through him. It's simply not his game, and any attempt to accommodate Howard's odd request does a disservice to Orlando's otherwise fluid and better-than-average offense. Plus, it gives them almost no shot of winning. The guys at 7 Seconds or Mess agree with me. 

If you want to call Dwight Howard dominant, then point out the parts of his game that make him so special. He'll clean that glass for you and dunk it in the process. He'll swat Rajon Rondo's floaters away like a gnat. But don't try to prove to anyone watching closely enough that Howard deserves more opportunities to assert himself in the post. You'll look as silly as his running hook.

They even put together a snazzy video to back up their points.