The Dallas Mavericks Quarrel With The Refs Again, Updated Free Throw Numbers Agree?

Last nights game against the Oklahoma City Thunder was yet another "feel-good-about-it" loss to a decent team: Dallas was again missing key rotation players in Delonte West, Brendan Haywood and Brandan Wright, but were able to take it down to the last shot and again Rick Carlisle and the players expressed frustration with late game calls, especially Ian Mahinmi's 6th foul against Serge Ibaka with 45 seconds remaining in the game and the Mavericks up 91-90. It appeared that the Frenchman got all ball in an attempt to block the shot after an offensive rebound. The next possession down the court, Dirk Nowitzki got hacked, but no whistles were blown. Another obviously wrong call happened in the 4th quarter when James Harden drove hard to the basket, got fouled, but Sean Williams flew in and blocked the shot to prevent the And1 opportunity, only to see that the referees called goaltending when the ball still was clearly on the rise. Said Jason Kidd after the game:

"We don't get the benefit of the whistle," Kidd said. "I don't think we're looked upon as champions, but that's a whole other story. Dirk (Nowitzki) should live at the line if they would call it the way it's supposed to be. But, he doesn't."

I already tried to approach the issue in this piece and updated the numbers today to give you a fresh look. Please go back to that piece in order to get an explanation of my approach. I've added a ranking with the differences between opposing oFTA/oFGA_P (Free Throw Attempts per Shot Attempt in the Paint), oFTA/oFGA_R (Free Throw Attempts per Shot Attempt at the Rim), oFTA/PF (Free Throw Attempts per Foul Call) and the teams FTA/FGA_P, FTA/FGA_R, FTA/oPF, which should point out the teams that get a lot more FT attempts off their shots at the rim, in the paint and foul calls.

Since the first time I calculated the numbers, the Mavs dropped in the rankings. They now rank 16th in FTA per FGA in the Paint (14th in February), 15th in FTA per FGA at the Rim (11th) and 20th in FTA per foul of the opponent (7th). That's some serious drop-off, especially in FTA/oPF.

On the other side of the floor the Mavericks gained a little bit of respect, now ranking 8th in oFTA per oFGA in the Paint (3rd), 8th in oFTA per oFGA at the Rim (4th) and 3rd in oFTA per Dallas foul (3rd - no change here). That's still not good, especially when you take into consideration, that, as you would expect, mostly lottery teams come up on top of this ranking.

Onto the differences: The Mavericks shoot 0.067 less FTs per FGA in the Paint than the opponents (23rd), 0.132 less FTs per FGA at the Rim (23rd) and 0.093 less FTs per foul (24th), making them indeed one of the more disrespected teams in the league. Meanwhile last nights opponent, the Thunder, rank 1st in every difference ranking. So what can you expect going against the most loved team by officials on their home floor? Maybe exactly what happened last night, a ton of bad calls and bailouts.

As I've pointed out in February, there are other explanations for these numbers, mainly that Dallas fouls every available drive attempt to let players earn the points at the line. But the big discrepancy in own free throw attempts and opposing attempts in relation to shot attempts at the rim, in the paint and fouls remains a concern.

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After the jump you'll find the numbers I've used for the research. Have fun with it!