Please Allow me to Rant a Bit

Ok, first of all, the Celtics won so this isn't sour grapes blaming the refs for a loss.   But the officiating is getting so bad that something really should be done about it.  It takes all of the enjoyment out of a game to see the refs work so hard to give a team an advantage.

The "respect for the game' stuff is absolutely ridiculous.  How can anyone respect the game when the referees very clearly have an agenda and call it one way for some teams and players and another way for others.  Two games in a row, there has been a definite bias in favor of the Heat and even the Heat fans are not liking it.  Here are a few comments from the Comments from the Other Side post about the officiating. 

I'l be honest, the refs have been waay to nice to us this game, we should be down more, we deserve to be down way more.

I'm embarassed that the Heat can't win on their own and need the refs to give them the game and even then they can't win. Disgusting

I'm not happy that the refs made the game appear closer than it was. But in the end we lost and thats all that matters.
And those are comments from HEAT fans!  When the officiating is so bad that fans are embarrassed for their own team being given the game, you know it's bad.  And, it wasn't just this game. It was even worse the previous game against the Jazz.  In that game, the Heat shot 47 free throws to just 21 for the Jazz.   And it wasn't because the Jazz were just shooting jumpers either.  The points in the paint were 56-36 in favor of the Jazz.  They were going into the paint and just not getting any calls.  In the Celtics game, The Heat shot 41 free throws to 25 for the Celtics and again, the Celtics had a 38-30 advantage in points in the paint.

And then we get to the technical and the flagrant called in the game.  Nate committed a foul and raised his hand to indicate that he committed it.  He didn't argue or complain.  He then turned toward the Celtics bench and just extended his hands out slightly, making a gesture to his coach.  For this he was given a technical foul.   Several times, the cameras focused on LeBron James and Dwyane Wade arguing calls and complaining to refs very overtly.   No technicals were called on them in spite of the cameras catching the complaining and the complaining being very visible and overt.

LeBron James is allowed to dip his shoulder and bull his way to the basket and every time he gets the call.  He commits 3 or 4 of those offensive fouls a game and never gets called for them.  He always dips his shoulder like he was playing football and gets away with it every time.   He was in the process of doing this very thing when Shaq went to put his hands up but since LeJerk was barreling at him with his shoulder down, Shaq's arms caught him on the way up.   The refs used that opportunity to call a fragrant foul on Shaq.

Respect for the game?  It has no basis in reality.  David Stern has made it so that no matter how bad the calls are, his refs can't be questioned.   By making it so that the players can't react to the horrible calls, he is hoping to keep attention off of how bad the officiating actually is.  But the commentators are still catching the bad calls and calling attention to them.  And of course, their cameras are pointing out the inequity in doling out technical fouls as they follow LeBron up the floor complaining and yelling directly at a ref all the way up the court.  It's time for David Stern to go.