Reading through all this and after watching the game, I still haven't seen anything that makes me feel Lebron is a crybaby. He might look at officials in disbelief sometimes but anybody who pretends Pierce doesn't do/hasn't done that is nuts. Some of the lack of respect he gets (and I do agree with the fact that Pierce does not get veteran/All Star respect from officials - I don't like that that system exists, but it's even more frustrating when that pecking order does exist and work against you when you play All Stars but it does not work for your All Star) is probably related to the asenine head wrapped in ice packs thing after the Indiana game three years ago. That was more of a crybaby move than anything I've seen Lebron do.
I'm not calling Pierce out, I don't see him whining about calls in the media barring that one incident. But the thing is, I don't see that from Lebron either. Lebron complains on the court sometimes. So does Pierce. But neither does it on the level of the Spurs or Pistons. And neither blames losses on officiating. Lebron admitted last night he was just off. "I missed a lot of shots I know I can make. I missed layups. Those layups I've made my whole life." No mention of refs, no whining.
Maybe he milked the flagrant call, but I agree with some others, if you can get better for your team, why not? If the refs watched the plays more closely and not the reactions of the players, they'd make better calls.
And I agree with MMac, I do hate blaming losses on officiating. Last night, the refs let a lot of action go, but I guess it probably was pretty even. Given that I watch games with a bias, if I don't feel a game was egregiously officiated, then it was probably pretty fair. Even though Atlanta shot ten more free throws per game than we did and I thought there were some terrible calls, we lost the games we lost, it wasn't officiating. And last night, had we lost, it wouldn't have been officiating, it would have been the failure to get any clutch contributions and any contributions at all from Pierce and Allen. Instead, we got huge plays down the stretch from KG, Cassell and Posey, and we won.
The Cavs have no right to whine about officiating as the reason they lost, and we would have no right to whine about officiating as the reason had we lost. Both teams played pretty crappy - the team that got more good performances in a crappy game won. KG, Perk, Posey and Cassell all played well for Boston, I'd say only Ilgauskas and maybe Wallace and Pavlovic played well for Cleveland. Wally was decent but I'd personally want more than 5 for 14 from him on a night when Allen didn't make him work at all defensively. Players decided the game, whether there were bad calls or not. It was pretty even on the whole. I just hope it remains the same.
