Well, it's bad officiating either way. The players have to adjust to the refs, but that's pretty hard to do when they're so inconsistent.

If we think they called it "correctly" in the second half, then it's fair to say they called it poorly in the first half. Either way, it's not a good look.

That's what makes it impossible. If the refs call the game a certain way for 23 minutes, they can't just decide "now let's completely switch things up". Let them beat on each other, or call it tight, but just be consistent.

When the Florida bench was called for a technical at 17:21 in the second half, the fouls were 7 to 3 Florida. The rest of the game, they were 16 to 4 Houston, and the one Florida foul was the "slamming the ball" tech that refs will call 99% of the time. So how do the refs suddenly start calling things tighter, but Florida actually foul less? That's how the conspiracy "refs have money on Florida" nuts get going.

In the end though, Houston turned it over their last 4 possessions, including an awful last chance to win the game.

I still think Houston is trash as far as a skilled basketball playing team. They are the '90's Knicks. They take up and cover a lot of space. That's their skill.

No doubt they changed the way the called the game at the half. Houston was so physical and just beat the crap out of Florida in the first half. But even with that change Houston still had chances to win the game and they could not come through in big moments. If you cannot even get a shot off in the last 2 possessions, then you do not deserve to win the game.

The 90s Knicks comparison is solid. But just as with the Bulls in the 90s the better team won in the end!

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

here's what happened. Florida started out the 2nd half committing a bunch of obvious fouls. Refs called them. At one point the foul totals in the 2nd half were 5-0. Refs saw this and decided they needed to even it out so they started blowing non stop fouls against Houston. Houston got screwed in this trade off because 2 key players ended up in early foul trouble. By then it was too late, refs had called so many fouls that we were already in the bonus.

My take: Florida actually won this game by committing all those fouls early in second half forcing refs to change the way the game was being whistled which gave Florida the advantage late.

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