KG fined $25 000 for criticizing the refs

[nickagneta]

The journey towards improvement begins with the realization of imperfection.

If only David Stern understood this.

Agreed.  But that is not up to the players, who are being paid for the league to point out. 

For example, if you worked for a company that had some major problems in your accounting division, would you like the managers to go on TV complaining about it?  Of course not, that would kill the stock in the company.  You want to fix it from within.

I agree there. KG deserved a fine. As did Wallace earlier this year and anyone else who complains about the refs publicly.

But eventually keeping your mouth shut publicly and complaining internally while watching nothing change for years and years are going to create a situation where players are going to see that complaining internally and out of the public eye is a worthless endeavor.

So, since they make tons of money and if they feel that enough public complaining will eventually bring enough attention to the situation to get the league to address a situation that wasn't getting addressed by keeping those complaints in house, then the players almost have to complain publicly and co it relentlessly until something happens.

[incoherent]

NBA should let the coaches get their 2 red flags a game, maybe not 2 per half but 2 a game.  Seems fair.

The NFL has only had nothing but success with this so why not copy it?  Oh, because the only way Stern can control his league is by controlling his refs.

[Chris]

NBA should let the coaches get their 2 red flags a game, maybe not 2 per half but 2 a game.  Seems fair.

The NFL has only had nothing but success with this so why not copy it?  Oh, because the only way Stern can control his league is by controlling his refs.

The NBA already has that.  They are allowed to review things like clock issues, 3-pointers, etc.  But, just like the NFL, penalties (or fouls) cannot be reviewed, because it is a judgement call in many instances. 

[get_banners]

The journey towards improvement begins with the realization of imperfection.

If only David Stern understood this.

Agreed.  But that is not up to the players, who are being paid for the league to point out. 

For example, if you worked for a company that had some major problems in your accounting division, would you like the managers to go on TV complaining about it?  Of course not, that would kill the stock in the company.  You want to fix it from within.

I agree there. KG deserved a fine. As did Wallace earlier this year and anyone else who complains about the refs publicly.

But eventually keeping your mouth shut publicly and complaining internally while watching nothing change for years and years are going to create a situation where players are going to see that complaining internally and out of the public eye is a worthless endeavor.

So, since they make tons of money and if they feel that enough public complaining will eventually bring enough attention to the situation to get the league to address a situation that wasn't getting addressed by keeping those complaints in house, then the players almost have to complain publicly and co it relentlessly until something happens.

if the league does nothing to improve the quality of refs, then i think it is ridiculous for players to be fined for complaining about it. that's the whole problem...sure, i get the "keep it in house" argument, but only if people try to get the house in order. stern and the league are not doing that at all.

[jdpapa3]

Didn't they hire some sort of military type guy to look over the refs a year ago? Well, I understand that they wouldn't want referee discipline to get out to the public. But man, I haven't seen one iota of change and I will not be surprised at all to see guys like Crawford, Javie, Bavetta, and Salvatore on the court for the Finals again, even though they seem to be the worst of the bunch and complete egomaniacs.

Or even worse: when Bill Kennedy got a Doc Rivers game last year after the incident between the 2 led to a fine of the ref a few months prior.

[jdpapa3]

He should be fined that money from the team for being whiny, rather than just stepping up and you know, defending Green on those 3's. 

I know the refs suck.  But this is nothing new.  But the refs did not lose the C's that game, their lack of defense did.

(disclaimer: I am not really saying it was KG's fault, just saying that the team in general needs to play a lot better defense before they have a right to complain at the refs in a game like that)

I have trouble getting behind this post when you consider that we have been tops in the league all season at defense. And I thought KG got screened pretty well on both 3's by Krstic in very similar plays and put forth a max effort to avoid the screens and contest the shots. It was a case where you shadow your defense to help on Durant and play an extra step off of Green because he has a low 30's % fg shooting in crunch time. Great play calls and awareness by the Thunder.

And the refs clearly changed the outcome of the game. Anytime there is a 5+ discrepancy in terms of BAD CALLS (not even free throws, straight up bad calls) and it is within a fg with 2 minutes left, they have already made their mark.

And you would be saying the same thing if the Thunder lost the game. Their defense on us was EVEN WORSE than ours was so I can't really accept that explanation.

[rickyfan3.0...]

They called those fouls because we couldn't cover Durant.

So, the refs were mad because we couldn't cover KD, and blew the whistle to show their displeasure?

No, we were fouling him because we couldn't cover him.

[jdpapa3]

They called those fouls because we couldn't cover Durant.

So, the refs were mad because we couldn't cover KD, and blew the whistle to show their displeasure?

No, we were fouling him because we couldn't cover him.

No one in the NBA can guard him one on one, but he was gifted at least 7 ft's(forget if the one where they put him at the line for 3 would've put us over the limit) that I can count.

[gar]

KG is an interesting guy. He made a calculated decision, not only to complain about the refs, but to do so in a way that got peoples attention (including the league). It is uncharacteristic of this team to complain about the refs; however, given the lack of calls for PP and KG for over a month now, the other night must have  pushed him over the edge. This is not just Tommy complaining, this is a very consistent message from all quarters of the Celtics community.

That said. Many people predicted that we would have trouble with the Thunder and we did. Am surprised that no one is complaining about the poor coaching at the end of the game.

[barefacedmonk]

They called those fouls because we couldn't cover Durant.

So, the refs were mad because we couldn't cover KD, and blew the whistle to show their displeasure?

No, we were fouling him because we couldn't cover him.

I'm not saying that we didn't foul KD at all...but there were some ridiculous calls made against us...for eg. the 3 free throws that were awarded to him when he wasn't even shooting. I appreciate people who don't make excuses after a loss...but being too rational is also irrational.

[Finkelskyhook]

Garnett should not get a free pass for his yapping when lesser players get called for taunting for a lot less.

Pierce should not get a free pass for traveling.  Or upfaking/then barelling into the defender while he's in the air.

Those are our guys who consistently get free passes.

Nobody else should either. 
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If the officials officiated by the rulebook for every player regardless of their status on the food chain, games would last about 5 hours each for about a month....Then players would adjust and the game would be a lot better for it.

[Atzar]

KG is an interesting guy. He made a calculated decision, not only to complain about the refs, but to do so in a way that got peoples attention (including the league). It is uncharacteristic of this team to complain about the refs; however, given the lack of calls for PP and KG for over a month now, the other night must have  pushed him over the edge. This is not just Tommy complaining, this is a very consistent message from all quarters of the Celtics community.

That said. Many people predicted that we would have trouble with the Thunder and we did. Am surprised that no one is complaining about the poor coaching at the end of the game.

I don't agree with the idea that it's uncharacteristic of the team to complain about the refs.  Sheed's been fined at least once this year for comments about the refs, Doc has received fines occasionally for the past three years for his comments, and the team (particularly Sheed and Perk) is notorious for getting T'ed up during games for arguing.

Having said that, I agree with KG in this case.  The refs gave OKC several FT's that they didn't earn.  Kevin Durant is a heck of a player, and he doesn't need any extra help to beat teams.

[barefacedmonk]

If the officials officiated by the rulebook for every player regardless of their status on the food chain, games would last about 5 hours each for about a month....Then players would adjust and the game would be a lot better for it.

David Stern...is that you? 

[CelticG1]

He should be fined that money from the team for being whiny, rather than just stepping up and you know, defending Green on those 3's. 

I know the refs suck.  But this is nothing new.  But the refs did not lose the C's that game, their lack of defense did.

(disclaimer: I am not really saying it was KG's fault, just saying that the team in general needs to play a lot better defense before they have a right to complain at the refs in a game like that)

I don't understand statements like these. Is there ever an instance where Ref's lose a game for a team? You can always point out 1000 instances in a game where players could have done something better. You can always say if the celtics hit more shots, or played better defense, or didn't commit that foul, or if the Doc put in X player that they  would have won. You are talking about 2 threes by Jeff Green at the End of the game. What about the other 100 whatever points they scored? There were probably so many instances where we could have played better defense but teams make shots. What if KG had been convering him and he hit those in KG's face? Would that have made the game ok or would we be pointing about the defense somewhere else?

I think part of the reason they are complaining about the ref's is that the ref's weren't letting them play defense, not an unwillingness on our part.

People have said that we needed to play better defense in this game but how could they? When they played defense they were whistled for ridiculous fouls. Yeah they commit some fouls if they are late on rotations (which apparently we were never late on a couple years ago) but the reason the thunder shot 50 percent was because A: KD was on fire and B: whenever we attempted to we were whistled with touch fouls sending a good team to the line. Once that started happenning we had to lay off them a little bit or they would have shot 70 free throws and we would have fouled out. So instead they got more uncontested shots resulting in higher percentage shots.

[guava_wrench]

Garnett should not get a free pass for his yapping when lesser players get called for taunting for a lot less.

Pierce should not get a free pass for traveling.  Or upfaking/then barelling into the defender while he's in the air.

Those are our guys who consistently get free passes.

Nobody else should either. 
-----------------------------------

If the officials officiated by the rulebook for every player regardless of their status on the food chain, games would last about 5 hours each for about a month....Then players would adjust and the game would be a lot better for it.

Very true about Paul Pierce.

No matter what we try, there will always be human error. It is unavoidable. That is a reality in basketball at the NBA level.

If someone can't deal with that, then they can watch the plodding pass the ball around the perimeter for 30 seconds with no interest in shooting game played in the NCAA.

The reality of human error means that there will be times where each team in the league will have an advantage or a disadvantage in a game.

Since football has a lot of downtime and fewer controversial calls that fans actually notice (how infrequently do you hear complaints about all the missed calls at the line of scrimmage), they can cover the human error more easily with reviews. We can see in baseball how big an interruption it is to go to the tape, so they limit it to only a few calls, though there are consistently missed calls at each base. It is too difficult to increase review usage in the NBA without slowing games down to a crawl.

It would be interesting to see what would happen if the NBA had MLB type rules regarding ejection for persistent arguing. Considering how inconsistent home plate umpires are over the course of a game, MLB has basically banned arguing with home plate umpires. Why? Because there is no point. There will always be subjectivity and inaccuracy so long as humans are the umpires. Personally, I look forward to automated balls and strikes, which would be much better.

Where could we reasonable add play review in the NBA? The more non-disruptive coverage, the better. We don't have 50 second windows between plays for coaches to go to their video guys for advice as to whether a play should be challenged and players often are so caught up in the play that they have no idea whether the call against them was legit.