What incentive did Stevens have to "control his team's roughhouse antics" in this series?
It was the only way they were going to have a chance of taking a game off the Cavs. Beat them up a little and make them check out for a game.
And I mean, yes, we played them roughly, but nothing was egregious by any means. It says a lot about the coddling of the Cavs that a team like ours was able to get under the skin.
Look at it from the other side. A clearly inferior opponent plays you very roughly for 3 games and then 10 minutes into game 4, a player has a clearly dirty non-basketball play that injuries one of your best players and seriously diminishes your title chances. How would you react in that situation?
The refs let the game get out of hand and frankly let the series get out of hand. It was a tough hard fought series, but game 4 was just silly.
If KO's play was a clearly dirty non-basketball play, then for the sake of logical consistency you must say that Love made a similar dirty non-basketball play just moments before. The terms "non-basketball play" and "dirty" are getting thrown around way too much anymore. How is it not a basketball play when KO was hooking his arm (as Love did to KO moments before) in order to try and get the rebound? That's called a foul, but if you equate that to a "non-basketball play" then there are 50+ of those a game. The spinning backfist by JR is a dirty non-basketball play, because there's no logical reason he should be throwing those in a basketball game.
It was just an accident, and I'd be saying the exact same thing if things were reversed. And I don't really blame Love for saying that in the heat of the moment. I think he's dead wrong and will eventually realize that (I mean, how could he not when he did the exact same thing on the same play?), but many people would be just as emotional in those situations.
Honestly, I thought Perk's initial screen was fine, too. It was definitely a flagrant 1 foul, but he went out there to set a message. It's just a hard screen to let the opponent know you won't back down. A flagrant 1? Yes, so what, in the long run a screen like that could mean more to your team than the two free throws. However, his antics afterwards by swiping at Crowder were unacceptable, and he should have been kicked out for that.