Grant Williams was ejected.
Joe Mazzulla was ejected.
Tatum got a technical.
Tatum and Williams were repeat offenders last year in terms of complaining to refs. It can become a distraction. Are the early technicals a concern going forward?
Yes it's terrible. People get emotional, my dad is one of those people who gets angry very easily but calms down very quickly as well. But when you're playing a game of basketball and you get a rep as someone who is a whiner then every team will be trying to bait you into getting ejected, and the refs will be on the lookout as well.
I'm less worried about Joe Mazz's tech, he definitely shouldn't have got one, Marc Davis was trying to be overprotective of the 2 female refs on his crew (Cheryl Flores and Natalie Sago) and he was very quick on the whistle, but Tatum did wave his arm in disgust at the whistle. Another player would probably have got a warning but as Eddie House said he has a rep for being a whiner and they probably T'd him up on that basis. Same with Gwill, he's probably an even bigger complainer than Tatum is, he's always arguing with officials. Now playing with emotion is great, if you're the type of player that that helps. Some players will try and pick a verbal fight on court to get themselves worked up, Larry Bird was great at it. But you can't get thrown out of the game. It has to be controlled aggression and controlled emotion.
Personally I don't get the whole arguing with officials thing. School, social basketball, I was always taught to play to the whistle and move on to the next play. Arguing won't get the referee to change his mind. Those are part of those "uncontrollables", you just have to deal with them. No matter how bad the referees are, just deal with it. Moaning about a bad call is pointless. Even worse when it starts to affect your game. I know people will say "but there's a game within the game and players like LeBum can get the officials to call things in their favor" well you have to be good at manipulation and it's clear these two are not. Because they have a rep with the officials as moaners and it's never good to have that kind of rep.
As fans, sure we can complain about the referees till the cows come home, that's what fans do. Complaining about referees from the comfort of our lounge room, throwing beer cans at the TV to try and hit Marc Davis and having the benefit of multiple replays to show how wrong he was is fun. But players have to focus on the game and it was clear they lost focus last game and ultimately it cost them.
