Most of those calls were BS. Let's face it.
You can't hard foul anybody anymore with a league full of floppers and complainers.
With that said, I love Jared Sullinger, and everything he does on the court. The dude cares about this team, and winning.
The refs are picking on him in my opinion so he stops hard fouling. That's what they do. Call certain calls on a player til' they stop doing it.
THIS! I literally posted a rant on facebook berating these refs this year. the flagrants hes been called for are laughable and whats even worse is that the refs look at the replay for 5 minutes and still call it a flagrant(ie. the flagrant on hickson where he hit ALL ball). The officiating has been just horrendous this year and so inconsistent. And im not trying to blame the refs for us losing either, we'd probably lose anyways but that doesnt make their incompetence acceptable. its really taking away from the game we all love and the NBA will start to lose fans because of it. Im honestly considering giving up watching games this year and trying again next year because it makes my blood boil..
I liked what Jackie Mac said after the game this morning. In essence, she said that it didn't matter whether the fouls measured up to what longer-time fans of the game think of as "flagrant," because all the players playing today know the rules, and they know what is considered what, and it really doesn't matter what players got away with 20 years ago.
Agreed. It isn't like Sully played back then and is being forced to adjust. These were the rules from day 1.
I am all for rules that stop players from trying to compensate for a lack of ability by hammering better players. If you want to compete, get better players. Don't try to match up by resorting to MMA instead of basketball.
I am all for teams doing whatever they have to in order to win. That is their obligation. But I am also all for the league putting rules in place to try to keep players in line. Otherwise we end up with the Knicks and Heat under Riley in the 90s.
Imagine a pickup game where you stop a guy from shooting by holding his head down (like Sully did in his last flagrant). That is far from part of the game.