This year’s play-offs already seem pretty physical after the first round.  We had Rajon Rondo assault Brad Miller and Dwight Howard try to decapitate Samuel Dalembert.  We also can’t forget Rondo’s second victim, Kirk Hinrich.  And things aren’t getting any better in Round 2.

In last night’s Lakers-Rockets game 2, Ron Artest got a little testy after Kobe Bryant elbowed him in the throat while trying to box him out.  At the time, Artest was assessed a foul and Kobe was not.  Artest went to referee Bill Spooner to plead his case.  When that proved futile, Artest decided to go across the court and discuss the incident with Bryant.  Ron did as Ron is wont to do and got right in Kobe’s face.  As teammates and officials came to break it up, Artest made a slashing motion across his throat.  One can only assume that this was to sign to Kobe that he hit him in the throat and he was upset.  Regardless of what the sign actually meant, Artest was ejected by Joey Crawford.

Now, people will say Artest deserved to be ejected after his reaction to being called for a foul and I don’t necessarily disagree.  But I don’t think Artest would have flipped out had the officials called a foul on Kobe.  Why they didn’t is beyond me.  Perhaps its the favoritism towards marquee players rearing it’s ugly head.  But who knows.

Today, after the fact, the league has ruled Kobe’s foul a Flagrant One.  While it’s nice that the league has acknowledged that the officials got the call wrong, the whole situation wouldn’t have spiraled out of control if they had gotten the call correct on the first go-around.  The officials (Spooner, Crawford, Greg Willard) did get a flagrant foul call correct earlier in the game when Derek Fisher lowered his head and shoulder and basically rammed Luis Scola. Fisher was ejected from the game and has been suspended for Friday’s game.

The Eastern Conference games weren’t any less physical.  Orlando’s Rafer Alston slapped Boston’s Eddie House in the back of the head late in the 3rd quarter and was ejected from the game by Bennett Salvatore.  Fortunately, House kept his cool until he and Alston could be separated.  That could have gotten really ugly.  I will have to give credit where it is due, the officials in this game (Salvatore, Eddie Rush, Tom Washington) did a nice job of keeping a very physical game under control.  Aside from Alston’s stupidity, the game was managed pretty well.  The league has suspended Alston for Friday’s game.

It just seems amazing to me that we are only a few games into round 2 and we’ve already had quite a few MMA-type moments.  Hopefully, the league will realize the need to keep its players safe and it’s image pristine and order the officials to be more vigilant during the game.  The last thing the NBA play-offs need is a brawl.

Video:

Here’s the Kobe-Artest situation.

Here’s Rafer slapping Eddie and House’s post game comments

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Olandis Poole was must have been anxious to throw someone out of a game, because he was quick to get rid of Carlos Boozer and Joel Przybilla.

Boozer and Przy were both hit with technicals after Boozer ran over Przy on an offensive play.  The two got to jawing at one another and were hit with technicals.  At that point, they were pretty much done with each other.  Przy was walking away from Boozer (who was not following him) and they were still talking at one another.  Most competent people would realize that at this point the situation is pretty much diffused and there is no need for further action.

But Olandis Poole isn’t a competent person – he’s an NBA referee.  He immediately hit them both with a second technical and ejected them each from the game.  Boozer is son confused that he actually has to ask if he was ejected.  It’s a pretty stupid ejection, considering that there was no real threat of the two escalating the situation.  Poole should have just let them go.

Here’s some video of the incident (starting at 0:37) and video of Sloan getting thrown out of the same game by another horrible official, Ron Garretson.

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Ron Garretson was eager to get in on the coach ejection craze going around the NBA.  Utah Jazz coach Jerry Sloan was given the axe by Garretson in the 3rd quarter of last nights game against the Trailblazers.

Sloan confronted Garretson after a hard foul on guard Kyle Korver.  Sloan felt that Korver was hit a little too hard and expressed himself to the officials.  Garretson had little patience for Sloan and tossed him.  Why did he toss him?  Because Sloan pointed his finger at Garretson.  I guess he hates that kind of stuff.  This makes he 3rd time this season that Sloan has been shown the door before the game has ended.

Maybe it’s just me, but there seems to have been an inordinately large number of ejections in the last few weeks.  I wonder if the referee’s patience is wearing thin here in the waning weeks of the season.

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I swear that this will be the last post on the James Posey incident.  Here’s video of Posey throwing the ball off the foot of referee Gary Zielinski.

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Denver Nugget forward Nene has been suspended for Friday’s game after being ejected from Monday’s game for having slight contact with referee Bill Spooner.  Nene received a technical for dropping The People’s Elbow on Louis Admanson and head butting him.  Nene took issue with the technical and went to discuss the call with Spooner (in a rational manner, I’m sure).  When he made his way over to Spooner, Nene appeared to slightly brush against him and was immediately ejected, because the Spoonman don’t mess around.

Nuggets coach George Carl had a slightly different view of the situation.  “My impression was I thought the referee touched him first, and then Nene brushed him away.”

Regardless of who touched who first, Nene will be sitting out Friday’s game against the Dallas Mavericks.

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Nene found out last night that the Spoonman doesn’t mess around when it comes to fighting.

Bill Spooner gave Nene the axe after he head butted and dropped an elbow on Louis Admanson in last night’s Nuggets-Suns game.  After the ejection, Nene tried to get into Spooner’s face.  I’m assuming that it was to politely ask him why he had been ejected.

It will be interesting to see if the league looks into this the same way they looked in the Doc Rivers-Bill Kennedy incident.  It appeared that Spooner relished Nene getting in his face – almost as if he welcomed it and perhaps goaded him into it.  Kennedy was accused by Rivers of goading him into a confrontation.

Now you have to consider that Nene has been upset with the officiating most of the season, so the league could just chalk this up to his continued frustration.  But it will be interesting to see if league takes actions similar to what they did with Kennedy.

And it will be even more interesting to see what sort of reaction the NBA Referee Union has to this incident.

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The NBA Referee’s Union released a statement today regarding the Doc Rivers/Bill Kennedy situation from last Tuesday’s Celtics game.  Check it out.

“Some things you cannot take out of the arsenal of the officials. It’s not a stare to start some kind of disagreement or goad him into getting ejected, it’s just like, ‘Hey, enough is enough.’ And basically he didn’t even stare him down. He walked away, he turned his back per what he is trained to do and he removed himself from the situation.”

“As far as we’re concerned, Billy Kennedy followed every rule according to the referee’s manual as it relates to handling situations like this. The only person in this scenario who has had a pattern of behavior that is unprofessional is Doc Rivers, not Billy Kennedy.” — Referees Union Spokesman, Lamell McMorris

I love this.  A referee makes a poor call and gets called out by a coach.  The NBA fines the coach and the referee.  The referee’s union then comes out with a statement absolving the official of any wrong doing and throwing the coach under the bus, stating he has a pattern of unprofessional behavior.

Is there any wonder why people think the referees suck?  Not only are they making bad calls consistently, they are also not taking any responsibility when one of their own clearly messed up.  In the post-Tim-Donaghy-era, you’d think the referee’s union would be doing more to rebuild the credibility of their membership rather than tearing it down further.

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The ejection streak continues.  Pistons coach Michael Curry was booted out of Detroit’s game against Miami Sunday night.  Curry was tossed by referee Tony Brothers for complaining about no call on Rodney Stuckey late in the game.

“We wanted Stuck to attack the basket, and that’s what he did,” Curry said. “I thought he was fouled on the play, and that’s what I was complaining about.”

Not sure what’s in the referee water this week, but it seems that there have been a disproportionate amount of coach ejections recently.  Maybe the refs are trying to flex their muscle and lock things down as we wind down the season.

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NBA officials struck again in last night Hawks-Cavs game.  Atlanta coach Mike Woodson was ejected from the game with 6:30 left in the 3rd quarter.  Joe Forte gave him the axe after arguing calls.

Woodson was not the only Hawks player to get hit with technicals.  The Hawks ended up with 4 technicals in all, with Mike Bibby and Josh Smith also receiving technicals.

We shouldn’t be too surprised at the number of technicals with a crew of Joey Crawford, Joe Forte and Michael Smith running the show.  They are some of the more trigger happy refs.

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There must be something in the air in the NBA these days.  Derrick Stafford tossed Dallas Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle from last nights game against the Atlanta Hawks.  Carlisle was tossed with 2:46 left in the second quarter for attempting to plead his case that Dirk Nowitzki was being roughed up.

“I thought Dirk was being held and pushed and got fouled repeatedly,” Carlisle said. “I kept asking for a foul to be called, but it wasn’t. I turned to the official and just got thrown out.”

Carlisle’s ejection comes only a few nights after Doc Rivers was ejected from a game by Bill Kennedy for shady reasons.  Are the officials getting a little trigger happy here towards the end of the season?  Who will be the next casualty?

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