Hard fouls are normally a part of playoff basketball. Uncontested layups are frowned upon by NBA coaches in the regular season, but they are looked upon even worse when it’s time to “win or go home”. Players are often removed from games for not being “tough enough”. And the worst complement that can be presented to a post-season bound NBA team is that they are “soft”.
With that said, though, it seems like the cheap shots have been coming a little more often lately than they have been in the last several years. (I don’t dare go back much further or the old-timers start talking about the Lakers and Celtics series of the 1980s.)
Derek Fisher was blind-sided by a frustrated Baron Davis in game 4 of Warriors-Jazz series. He was frustrated with his team’s lack of productivity in how the game was turning out. He was tired after playing so many minutes in 4 of the last 7 days. So he took it out on his friend and former teammate Derek Fisher. That’s right, the Derek Fisher who has been recently interviewed about his daughter’s eye cancer. The Derek Fisher who is the head of the Player’s Association.
Steve Nash has been body-checked by Robert Horry in something that the Canadian has probably seen often before…while watching the NHL on TV at home. And that doesn’t even mention the knee to the groin by the Bruce “dirtiest player in the league” Bowen. Now this is the Steve Nash who won the NBA MVP two years in a row, and likely would have won it this year had he not just won it two years in a row.
You’ve got to wonder about the choices of the victims of those cheap-shots.
Probably not too smart, in my opinion.
And almost all of them have been called on the San Antonio Spurs and the Golden State Warriors.
How long is David Stern likely to put up with these actions while he is trying to remake the Association into something less “thuggish” with mandatory dress codes and more severe penalties for bad behavior on and off the court? The Warriors aren’t likely to get past Utah tonight, but the San Antonio Spurs have at least 2 more games against the Phoenix Suns. It’ll be interesting to see if the punishments will be coming more often by the referees and the league to keep the players in check in this post-season.
Would the refs think of calling the series slanted slightly in the Suns favor just to send the Spurs home? To get their “thuggishness” out of the way and allow a team of “nice guys” to continue on?
Would Stern even look favorably upon it?
The San Antonio Spurs can normally do no wrong in the eyes of the NBA.
Will the recent negative publicity towards Bowen and Horry ruin it for the league’s Golden Child?
I think it already has in our eyes.
Inevitable it will affect the refs as well in the days to come.
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