What I saw as the turning point last night was a combo of both. Shaq hacked Rondo for the 2nd or 3rd time as he came in for a layup. Shsaq wasn't even in the paint when Rondo drove in initially, he ran over specifically to send Rondo a message....Don't come in here anymore with that. Now if the game was evenly ref'd that would have been a flagarent, no not "playoff" basketball as our friend Reggie Miller said, it is a flagarent, because the NBA set those up to keep people from physicallly whacking someone instead of playing the game....and to avoid retaliation, which is my next point.
You see, that was the turning point on us, the refs put us into a situation where everyone had 3 fouls in the third, not a good place to be. That is when players play catiously, to avoid getting #4 and sitting out for a while, that is how the refs control who is running the game. The only way around that is to always hit your outside shots. Almost impossible, also because the refs will call a screen foul, or 3 seconds, or something to further slow your momentum.....
The last point here is that PP should have layed out MO Williams, the way Shaq hit Rondo on that dunk. That was Cleve's turning point. Mo started hitting everything...and that was that. PP shouldn't have been the only one to get near Mo, he just ran the floor with the ball unempeded, and went in for a dunk,......but whoever was back there should have made sure it NEVER HAPPENED that way.....no Mo W dunk..and if he hit the floor hard, well that is "PLAYOFF" basketball, like Reggie boy said....Then we show, that the C's are in it for real also, and that you don't whack our guy without a price...! That is just my opinion along with some experience there...! Personally, I would have sent mo into the celler.
