Good win last night by Washington but the officiating was terrible. I read a quote from Steve Francis on Yahoo this morning that said we got help from "lenient calls", what a load of garbage. I can't think of one call that was questionable that went in our favor, in fact it was the exact opposite. What's even worse was that these calls were coming in the 4th quarter in tight game. The block by Haywood that caused him to foul out, it was a clean block, had that game gone into overtime we would've been down our starting center because of a poor call on a clean block. Then there was the unbelievably clean block by Ruffin that was called a foul. Instead of us getting the ball & putting the game away, it gave Orlando 2 free-throws & the opportunity to stay in the game. I know we don't get alot of respect because we're Washington & we don't have all-star players but give me a break, this is the second game in a row where there was an obvious goaltend & yet there was no call. Shaq did one the game on tuesday & I forget who smacked it after it had it the glass last night. Francis got "lenient calls" all night, just because he's an all-star. He got that charging call against Hughes with 4 minutes left in the game, not only were his feet still moving but his entire body was shifting to the right to draw contact. I'm suprised EJ is not doing anything or saying anything about this, I haven't even seen him get a technical about any of these calls. He should be jumping off his seat & screaming at the officials. Comments? Has anyone else noticed this stuff?
I think every team thinks they are getting screwed on calls. Have you ever met one NBA player who agreed with every call made against them? As a team you have to play the game and not worry about the officiating. Once you use the refs as an excuse for losing then you are deflecting the blame onto someone other than yourself. BTW wasn't it Francis who lost the ball twice to Hughes in the 4th quarter which led to easy baskets? Their interior defense was especially horrible in that game as well. There is more to losing then just blaming the refs.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting CourtVision:</div><div class="quote_post">I think every team thinks they are getting screwed on calls. Have you ever met one NBA player who agreed with every call made against them? As a team you have to play the game and not worry about the officiating. Once you use the refs as an excuse for losing then you are deflecting the blame onto someone other than yourself. BTW wasn't it Francis who lost the ball twice to Hughes in the 4th quarter which led to easy baskets? Their interior defense was especially horrible in that game as well. There is more to losing then just blaming the refs.</div> I understand what you mean, but we won the game last night so I'm not using the calls as an excuse for losing, its just frustrating. The 2 blocks & the goaltending call were just so blatant & that was the 2nd goaltending call in 2 straight nights. I just don't see that happen with other teams like that. They came at the end of the game at a time when the refs really just need to hang up their whistles & let alot of contact go. Yea, Hughes picked Francis' pocket clean, I was really happy they put Hughes on him instead of Arenas. Once again Arenas was playing poor defensively. I don't understand what was wrong with Arenas last night, he was letting Francis blow right by him & on the other end he was attacking the basket like I'm used to. We really needed him to penetrate to open up shots for the other players but we just kept passing it around the circle & taking contested jumpshots until Haywood came back in giving us some presence in the post.
