Thursday, May 7, 2009

playoff suspensions

Check out these videos and see if you can see any consistency in some of Stu Jackson's decisions for NBA playoff fouls.

Robert Horry body checks Steve Nash into the scorer's table


Punishment: suspended 2 games (Amare and Diaw were each suspended for leaving the bench area).


Rajon Rondo throws Hinrich into the scorer's table then tries to elbow him in the head


Punishment: nothing


Kenyon Martin shoves Dirk Nowitzki


Punishment: $25,000 fine


Dwight Howard elbows Samuel Dalembert in the head


Punishment: suspended one game


Kobe Bryant elbows Ron Artest somewhere between his chest and throat


Punishment: Essentially nothing (upgraded to a flagrant 1)


Derek Fisher doing an NFL hit on Luis Scola


Punishment: Suspended one game


Rafer Alston slaps Eddie House in the back of the head


Punishment: Suspended one game


Rajon Rondo slaps Brad Miller in the face


Punishment: nothing


And most recently, Kendrick Perkins elbows Mickael Pietrus in the throat


Punishment: nothing


For the record, the Celtics are 3 for 3 on questionable plays reviewed by the league in this post season.

I wanted to look at the numbers to see if having a player that is suspended helps or hurts a team's chances of winning. This year the Magic won Game 6 vs Philadelphia when Howard was suspended and last night they won Game 3 vs Boston when Alston was suspended. The Lakers also won last night without Fisher. The Spurs won Games 5 and 6 when Robert Horry was suspended (although in Game 5 Phoenix didn't have Amare or Diaw due to suspension). I also remember Phoenix winning a Game 5 over the Lakers in 2006 after Raja Bell choke-slammed Kobe in Game 4. I haven't been able to find historical suspension data in the playoffs to fully investigate but it appears that no suspension for Perkins may be a bad thing for Boston.

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