Heat's preferential treatment: too much?

[RyNye]

The biggest problem with preferential treatment is on the DEFENSIVE end, not offensive. On offense, they are driving to the rim a lot, so there will be fouls (even if some are a little BS).

It's on the defensive end that stars like James and Wade are permitted to get away with a lot more contact that any other player and not get called. Wade, especially ... some of the things I have seen him get away with on defense are absurd. There is no way James or Wade would be considered as good on defense if they were actually called for all of their reach-ins and shooting fouls, instead of being gifted free steals and blocks.

[Celtics4ever]

It's ridiculous.  They ought not to call a game differently for any star.  Rules should apply to all equally.

[nba is the worst]

The biggest problem with preferential treatment is on the DEFENSIVE end, not offensive. On offense, they are driving to the rim a lot, so there will be fouls (even if some are a little BS).

It's on the defensive end that stars like James and Wade are permitted to get away with a lot more contact that any other player and not get called. Wade, especially ... some of the things I have seen him get away with on defense are absurd. There is no way James or Wade would be considered as good on defense if they were actually called for all of their reach-ins and shooting fouls, instead of being gifted free steals and blocks.

100% accurate - blatant hacks become steals, and they are NEVER in foul trouble.

[the TRUTH]

To those of you who don't think there's a hidden agenda on the part of the refs: how do you explain LeBron going FIVE CONSECUTIVE GAMES without committing a single foul three years ago? He played over 180 total minutes in those games, but not a single foul. Interesting.  

http://sportsbybrooks.com/are-nba-refs-refusing-to-call-fouls-on-lebron-23222

[the TRUTH]

And like others have mentioned, Pierce attacks the basket all the time, gets hammered, and doesn't get the call. It honestly insults me as a basketball fan when people say that LeBron and Wade just get more calls because they attack the basket more.

[Greenbean]

Yup...and when guys start attacking the basket relentlessly, refs will start to get used to calling the foul out of habit. We saw it with Rondo against NY this year.

If Rondo was built a little more like DWade and Bron, then he would be able to do it every night too.

There's "habit" and then there's "intent".

In '06, Wade avg'd 9 fts/game in the season and playoffs up until the Finals, and then in game 5 of a tied series shot 25, followed by 21 in Dallas, in games "won" by a total of 4 pts.

He holds the Finals record for fta's in just 6 games

That finals was rediculous I will admit, but we havent seen anything near that level since then in my opinion.

[BballTim]

The Heat get lots of star calls, and they also have two players who get a lot of points by driving inside and getting fouled.

Those two factors combined result in a lot of free throws for the Heat.

This. Stars get these calls because they're always aggressively attacking the basket. Aggressive moves tend to lead to poor calls in your favor, because a lot of times it just seems like the contact that results was a foul.

Further, I don't know that they get all that many egregious calls in the first place. They're just so good at drawing contact the right way that they get fouled outright.
 

  I don't agree with this. Rondo and other players go to the rim and draw significant contact without fouls being called, while players like LeBron and Melo get calls for much slighter contact. Knowing that they'll likely get a call makes them more aggressive, knowing they'll likely get a foul called against them affects the way defenders play them. The Celts got techs in both of the first two games for complaining about the disparity in the calls, I can't blame them for complaining in either case. The difference is pretty blatant.

[CelticG1]

The rules and the interpretation  of the rules are the problem. They don't allow you to reasonably defend these guys and refs can literally call any contact a foul without reprecussion.

everyone admits that the officiating is a gigantic problem in the NBA. No  one really thinks that the majority of the calls for wade and james should be fouls

[nba is the worst]

Yup...and when guys start attacking the basket relentlessly, refs will start to get used to calling the foul out of habit. We saw it with Rondo against NY this year.

If Rondo was built a little more like DWade and Bron, then he would be able to do it every night too.

There's "habit" and then there's "intent".

In '06, Wade avg'd 9 fts/game in the season and playoffs up until the Finals, and then in game 5 of a tied series shot 25, followed by 21 in Dallas, in games "won" by a total of 4 pts.

He holds the Finals record for fta's in just 6 games

That finals was rediculous I will admit, but we havent seen anything near that level since then in my opinion.

Lakers 21-6 ft margin in the 4th Q of game 7 in the '10 Finals would qualify, although many of those were reasonable on both ends

[guava_wrench]

Meh. I see a lot of contact on Wade and Lebron penetration that is a no call. If we focus on every call we don't like, we might wrongly think that the Heat guys get every call and we get none. The reality is that there are a lot of missed fouls on Wade and Lebron drives, just like with someone like Pierce, and they all also get a lot of generous calls. The plays are just to fast for there not to be a lot of missed calls.

Pierce will continue to get less calls as he continues to play farther from the hoop. He has become so good from 3 that this is not a bad approach.

[guava_wrench]

when you drive to the hole you get fouled.  When you stand around and shoot jump shots, you don't get fouled. 

Charlotte actually got more foul shots against the Heat than it has averaged in the other 4 games (21 vs 18.5). 

nice response.

Stats are naturally noisy. Every team in the league will have a game where they get a lot more FT than the other teams. This is going to happen a lot when your team has 2 elite penetrators that are extremely difficult to defend.

[MBunge]

Everybody knows stars get calls.

Everybody knows NBA refs can get caught up in the moment and give the team playing with more aggression and passion some calls.

Everybody also knows that NBA refs just arbitrarily decide to not call fouls at some points.  It's usually at the end of games but not always.

The one area where preferential treatment has undeniably been going on is in technical fouls.  Once refs were instructed to start handing out Ts a little more freely to clamp down on bad on court behavior, it became PAINFULLY clear that certain stars could do everything but drop their shorts and take a dump a dump on the ref's face and they would not get that second technical.

Mike

[Meadowlark_Scal]

miami gets way to many calls..and as usual..most of the time there was no foul..it is ruining the league....more...! The only time they were called fair..was in the series finals vs Dallas..and we see what that did to them..!

[BballTim]

Meh. I see a lot of contact on Wade and Lebron penetration that is a no call. If we focus on every call we don't like, we might wrongly think that the Heat guys get every call and we get none. The reality is that there are a lot of missed fouls on Wade and Lebron drives, just like with someone like Pierce, and they all also get a lot of generous calls. The plays are just to fast for there not to be a lot of missed calls.

Pierce will continue to get less calls as he continues to play farther from the hoop. He has become so good from 3 that this is not a bad approach.

  If you're saying they don't get every call, I agree. If you're saying they don't get calls that 90+% of the league rarely get, I disagree.

[Lord of Mikawa]

Did anyone notice how many times Pierce was aggressive and drove to the hoop and "appeared" like he was fouled big time and alas a no call? The last game was against the freaking Wizards and was at home. Two variables which some would lead us to believe deserves better officiating. If that would have been LeBron or Wade, he would have been to the line all night.

Granted, Pierce did draw a few fouls and get to the line but I can remember 3-4 times he went to the hoop and they swallowed their whistles.

His drive to the basket in Game 5 of the Semis last year comes to mind. The NBA definitely has an agenda at play and storylines to push. Unfortunately we die-hards don't set the tone. The casuals who watch Sport Center and are into Lebron and his ilk do that.