Often times I rail and whine here about the need for adults to act like adults and stop blaming a referee for their own circumstances. Tom Weir and the Chicago Bulls did exactly that ... they did not blame the referee.
In Weir's story (Did refs hose Bulls last night? Not really) he provides a thoughtful analysis of the free throw situation across the series thus far, clearly indicating that the result was "fairly predictable" that the Bulls did not get to the line that much in game 5. He actually used facts, real facts to show that:
Going into Game 4the FT tries were near even, with Miami holding a 68-67 edge. That wasn't to be expected, given that Miami was one of the NBA's best teams at getting to the line during the regular season. The Heat's 2,288 FT attempts ranked third, behind only Denver (2,429) and Oklahoma City (2,401). The Bulls ranked 11th.
Equally heartening was that the Bulls did not play "the ref card", as Weir calls it. There were several great quotes from the Bulls who, I think, had a very enlightened view of what happened.
The Bulls didn't play the ref card. Carlos Boozer told the Chicago Tribune that, "We've never been an excuse team. We're not going to start being an excuse team now. They got fouled, I guess we didn't."
Added Taj Gibson: "Whatever happens, you can't argue with the ref. They're going to make the call, so you have to keep playing. You can't hang your head and whine about the call. You have to keep playing."It gave me great hope that there are some level heads out there that at least recognize, even if the referee is wrong, that you have to keep going. Believe me, referees reflect deeply on mistakes they made, and even ones they did not, to make things better. Having a player or coach bark at you in the press does not make things any better, or help the overall situation.
Kudos to Mr. Weir and the Bulls.
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