<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">WALTHAM, Mass. (AP) -- Celtics coach Doc Rivers is kicking up a fit about Reggie Miller. During Boston's first-round playoff series against the Indiana Pacers, Rivers has been campaigning for the referees to be on the lookout for Miller's attempts to draw foul calls. On Wednesday, Rivers said he is worried that officials will give Miller ``sympathy calls'' as he heads into retirement. ``You hope the officials don't keep falling for the flops, the grabs, the holds, the kicks,'' Rivers said after practice for Game 3, which is Thursday night in Indianapolis. ``Reggie's a good player, but it's amazing what he gets away with. That's a concern for us. He's on a farewell tour and you're worried about the sympathy calls.'' One of Rivers' complaints is that Miller goes up for a shot and kicks his legs out to ward off a defender and draw a foul. The move has been illegal since Rivers' playing days, he said, when Spud Webb used to try it. But it's not for everybody. ``It's a great move if you can get away with it,'' Rivers said. ``Most guys would fall over backwards when they try to kick.'' </div> Source I'm not a Celtic fan, but I have to agree, Reggie received A LOT of favoritism in the last game.
Reggie gets away with it all game, it's part of being a veteran. Larry got the calls, MJ got the calls, Shaq gets the calls. How Reggie found his way into that group when he's won exactally nothing is beyond me, but it should still have been expected by Doc, especially when your throwing a rookie out there to try and stick with him.
Reggie makes the refs look like tools. He knows all the tricks that will get him to the line. I don't know of another player that got to the FT line so many times on jumpshooting alone. And it's not the pump-fake-get-under-your-defender fouls, it's these fouls that he just kicks his leg out and makes it look like his defender fouled him. He's a great player but it's amazing how he made the refs look like complete fools in his career.
The ones that bother me the most are the leg kick-outs. It's absolutely deplorable that any professional referee would fall for that type of sell. The kick out is almost always to the side and it's blatently obvious. The one last game was a sell that the referees should hang thier heads in shame that they got worked on.
Reggie has been getting away with all kinds of stuff since he annonced his retirement. As a Bleed-Green Celtic's fan I think that the leauge doesn't want Reggie out of the playoffs in the first round of his last season so they are giving the Pacers a cushion by letting Miller get away with things that a player like Tony Allen would get called for. The officials should just call the game fairly and let the better team win the series, it's as simple as that. But I completely agree with Coach Rivers, Miller has been getting away with murder. Iv'e lost some respect for Miller after the way he's been getting away with everything then talking trash to the Boston players. When Allen got hit with a technical in game two for saying something to Miller, you could tell Reggie was saying things to him and Allen retaliated. It should have been a double technical but the officials let Miller off the hook while they hit Allen with the technical. I pitty the Referees who are babying Miller.
I'm to the point where I just expect for guys like Reggie to get all the calls. What bothers me more is that refs love to call anything and everything on rookies, given the fact that the C's have so many rookies as key contributors.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting AA13:</div><div class="quote_post">Reggie has been getting away with all kinds of stuff since he annonced his retirement. As a Bleed-Green Celtic's fan I think that the leauge doesn't want Reggie out of the playoffs in the first round of his last season so they are giving the Pacers a cushion by letting Miller get away with things that a player like Tony Allen would get called for. The officials should just call the game fairly and let the better team win the series, it's as simple as that. But I completely agree with Coach Rivers, Miller has been getting away with murder. Iv'e lost some respect for Miller after the way he's been getting away with everything then talking trash to the Boston players. When Allen got hit with a technical in game two for saying something to Miller, you could tell Reggie was saying things to him and Allen retaliated. It should have been a double technical but the officials let Miller off the hook while they hit Allen with the technical. I pitty the Referees who are babying Miller.</div> You want to talk about the league taking over? Remember back when O'Brien had his first full GOOD season as C's coach? They played the Sixers in the first round, and AI was hurt, and not sure if he would be full strength for the first round. For reference, this was the year the C's made the Eastern conference finals. Well, this was also the year AI won MVP and the scoring title and was quite obviously a major drawing card. So what does Stern (Adolph) do, he announces a week before the playoffs that they're extending the playoff schedule for TV's sake. So not only does AI get to heal and wait out his injury, no one can get momentum and the season nearly ends on Iverson's heroics, but the C's would not be denied. Nevertheless, the finals were played in June, the uproar was tremendous, but no one paid any attention and as usual, Adolph's supreme power took over once again. On the note of the actual purpose of this thread, I will say only this for Reggie Miller. He has introduced a style of play in the NBA that will hopefully fade with his retirement (please hear me out Rip, I loved you at UConn, when you weren't Reggie II), this man has set basketball officiating and guard play back 15 years with his career. He has frozen the style that teams must use. I admire his use of the mid-range jumper to make his game, and that takes a remarkable amount of talent, but his detriment to the game outweighs his abilities. Officials still fall for his nonsense, and he talks (Read: WHINES) far too much in games, still today. You see, the thing is, that he uses the fast pace of NBA play to make officials work for him. If he is scrambling baseline to baseline (an admirable skill in the 60's, thank you John Havlicek) at top speed, yes, he will inevitably be struck by someone in the process. But on every play? In every halfcourt set? By every player on the court? When you use officials, who aren't supposed to affect the outcome of the game, to your advantage to win games and score points, you cheat, and when you cheat, you lose, just like Reggie has made a habit of in his career. He is the single greatest flop artist this side of Brazil's infamous mid-fielder Bebeto. And the only man that Michael Jordan (the embodiment of the NBA) ever hated in his playing days. Enough sympathy, enough of all that talk, it's just that Reggie has the refs snowed like he always has. On the other hand, I would like to mention that Reggie did make for some of the greatest playoff drama in the history of the Pacers organization when he and Bird faced off back in the day, and when he single-handedly sunk the Knicks, but that's just not enough to forgive his abuse of the rules, and his attitude toward those that follow them.
