Dear David Stern, Stu Jackson, Joey Crawford, and the NBA:

I have been a lifelong fan of the NBA and I felt it necessary to express my frustration and disappointment with the league over their recent hypocrisy over not upgrading Dwyane Wade’s blatant shove and attempt to injure Darren Collison to a Flagrant 2 and to suspend him after suspending Jason Smith after an equal play on Blake Griffin. After not getting his way on a play moments earlier, in which the defender went straight up and avoided contact worthy of a foul, Mr. Wade was frustrated and upset and instead of making a basketball play on a player in possession of the ball, he simply shove-checked Mr. Collison to the floor without regard to player safety or playing by the rules. Afterwards, he jawed with the player he flagrantly fouled in a clearly less than remorseful or apologetic manner. This sequence of events shows his lack of respect for his opponents (the Pacers and Darren Collison, a non-marquee player), his own team (by costing them 2 points and the ball), the officials (his attempt to rectify what he likely deemed a blown call), the rules (the foul was beyond normal game play), the league (upstaging and disregarding your officials and rules), and the integrity of the league (his belief that he can do whatever he wants to on the court and the league will not hold him accountable).

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I hope this link works. D Wade was upset at a very slight Indy celebration after pulling out a gut checking win in Miami. I actually think he was looking to talk about something else other than the fact that the Pacers outplayed them. Was it close? Yes Tough? Yes as the reamining games will be. I would be upset after a lose also but put the focus where it belongs. YOU GOT OUT PLAYED!! I know they Heat didnt make shots they were supposed to but neither did the Pacers. As for the "celebration", this was Miamis Celbration after winning in the first round of the playoffs when they beat Boston. Talk about carried away. Link: Heat celebrating

If you haven't seen this yet it's on FB.

via ballislife.com

Put it on a FanPost so more people would see it.

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Written by Mike Wells

MIAMI – Dwyane Wade had to be kidding.

No, really, tell me Wade was joking when he made a comment about the Pacers’ supposed celebration at the end of Game 2?

“I heard they wanted to be like the Dallas Mavericks,” Wade said. “I saw their little celebration at the end of the game.”

Celebration?

I didn’t see a celebration. What I saw was a group of players congratulating each other on the court, then David West telling them to get off the court and head to the locker room because he knows they’ve still got some unfinished business.

“We can’t get too excited because we won one game,” West said. “That is not our goal in this series. We can’t overreact because we were able to get one game down here.”

Wade has no room to talk about anybody celebrating. Wade and LeBron are no doubt two of the best players in the world, but the Heat are at the top of the list of celebrating.

They had a ceremony with smoke and everything else during a ceremony before the Big Three even played a game together in 2010. LeBron predicted the Heat would win numerous championships. The Heat may win a few championships with the Big Three, but they can’t criticize anybody for celebrating. LeBron used to pose for fake pictures with his teammates in Cleveland. Wade likes to stand at the scorer’s table before home games with his hands extended pointing up toward the fans.

“I don’t know if they didn’t expect to win,” Wade said. “I don’t know if they didn’t expect to win. Every night we go out on the court, we expect to win.”

That was a weak excuse for Wade to use as motivation during the rest of the series.

1. I'm not saying that the refs have been biased in the first two games (although before the second half of game 2, I would have). However, they have been honestly and legitimately bad this series. Missed calls going both ways, piss poor make up calls, and blatant superstar favoritism. Did anybody else watch game 1 of the Knicks/Heat series? Remember the flagrant called on Tyson Chandler for the open floor pick set on LBJ? If that is a flagrant 1, then Wade should have been @#$%ing tossed for straight tackling DC from behind. (So sue me, I did say they have been biased.) It was obviously a frustration foul that could have honestly hurt another player if DC had not been fortunate enough to fall fairly cleanly and in open space.

2. I can live with the Pacers losing to the Heat. I can live with them losing the next 3 games, as long as they are close. The Heat are good; and LeBron and D-Wade don't annoy me as much as they once did, or as much as they seem to annoy others. What I cannot abide is the sycophantic media/announcers/play-by-play at these games. Marv Alberts and Steve Kerr might as well have been the Heat's local team for all of the "unbiased" coverage we got in game 2.

3. The Pacers, on both offense and defense, seem to be dominant for some stretches and absolutely wretched during others. What they have been pretty consistently elite at is mucking the game up. This is a team that can make just about anybody play ugly basketball.

4. Maybe I am showing my own bias again, but I felt like Danny Granger's near foul on LBJ just before the sort-of/almost/not really scuffle was pretty clean. I do not mean that it wasn't a foul, just that he came down partially on top of the guy, and his hand/elbow happened to hit LeBron in the nose. LeBron, however, threw his elbow at DG's head like 10 seconds later for no real reason other than wanting some payback. Danny dodged it, but something tells me that even if he had gotten hit the Refs would still have called a double technical. This of course, is because the idea that you should assess any sort of extra punishment to LeBron for throwing an elbow at a guy's head is anathema to the NBA. (I actually don't blame LeBron for this. Hell, if I got this kind of protection/favoritism all of the time, I would feel like it was justified, too.)

I'm interested to know where you guys think I am being overly biased/off base, and what your own thoughts on the first two games are.

They look scared. They look disoriented. They look totally lost! But, they only trail by 5 at halftime. Hopefully, they will decide to show up in the second half. Granger, West and Hibbert are doing nothing! And Hill brings the ball up and stands around for 20 of the 24 seconds, before doing anything. Of course, when everyone is standing around, it's hard to have very many assists! 5, for the first half. Sheesh, come on guys. But as bad as the team has played, I'm believing that PRIDE will come to the surface and they'll show up in the second half. Maybe not a win, but at least some confidence for the games back in Indy! Lets go team.

Here are some interesting stats from the Pacers-Heat game one

Paul George - 6 fouls
Roy Hibbert - 5 fouls
George Hill - 5 fouls
16 fouls between the three in 80 mins of play

Dwayne Wade - 1 foul
LeBron James - 1 foul
2 fouls between the two in 83 mins of play

16 to 2 fouls in the same minutes.

Riiiiggghhhtttt! Call me a conspiracy theorist but that doesnt seem quite right! Are the Pacers really that much more prone to foul? They foul 8 times for every 1 time a Miami Superstar fouls in the same time on the floor? Are the Pacers really that much more aggresive players? I thought this was the playoffs. You know, where they let the players play a little. And does James and Wade just not know how to foul? Am I the only one that sees this? Why isn't this crap a national story. The NBA is freaking rigged and it is glaringly obvious!!!! And people tell me Miami is an exciting team to watch. Im telling you watching 2 guys shoot free thows all game isnt exactly exciting basketball to me. And am I the only one that gets tired of seeing LeBron James get foul calls when there is absolutely no contact? Literally zero contact on a drive?

Poll

Let me know what do you think about the officiating in the NBA?

• There is no officiating bias, NBA refs are as good as any other in professional sports.
• NBA officials suck, but they suck equally for every team and every player.
• The NBA, the media, and the market benefit from successful big market teams(LA, Boston...). The refs job is to nudge and do what they can to make this happen.
• The NBA wants to protect its Superstars. They are the ones that bring in the crowds... and the money. It the refs job to not let anyone touch them.
• People like underdogs. The refs help small market teams out to make things interesting cause everyone loves a cinderella story.

  72 votes | Results

Not really sure what this means, but here are the totals: Miami committed 95 fouls and Indiana committed 110 fouls. Playoffs: Game 1: Miami committed 22 fouls, Indiana committed 31 fouls. So, the average foul difference in the 4 regular season games was an average of 4 more fouls per game was called on Indiana. The first game of the playoffs, 9 more fouls were called on Indiana than Miami. At some point in the game, our entire starting lineup was in foul trouble. It will be interesting to see how this progresses throughout the series. There is nothing that will upset a team's game plan and chemistry more than foul trouble.

We can lose game 2 and still win 1-2 games and have a competitive series with the heat, but if the Pacers have any chance at winning this series, they have to come out and show some toughness and smack the heat in the mouth. Without Bosh they went from being very thin on inside defense and having one good perimeter big man, to having joel anthony and ronny turiaf. That means ZERO offense from the heat's starting 4 and 5. That is huge for the Pacers! Hibbert and West can now lurk in the paint and cut off wade and lebron's drives without having to worry about stretching out to cover a bosh jumper.

So with that glaring advantage I just pointed out, why is game 2 a must win?

Because I have yet to see this team have a killer instinct. Sometimes they get caught up in the sharing of the ball too much. If a player on the team has a clear advantage over his matchup, you have to abuse that matchup until the other team adjusts and then you go to your other options. I don't know how many times this year I've seen West manhandle his opponent on 3 straight trips, only to not see the ball for another 5 minutes b/c Granger is jacking up jumpers.

I've preached this point alot I know, but dominating the paint almost always leads to high percentage shots, free throws and thus getting their team in foul trouble, and of course winning the game.

So here's to hoping the Pacers do come out and smack the heat for a win, b/c if they don't well Danny and Paul's grumbles about touches might get louder. And this team will divide.

Pace = Possessions per 48 minutes
OffRtg = Points scored per 100 possessions
DefRtg = Points allowed per 100 possessions
NetRtg = Point differential per 100 possessions

Heat efficiency vs. Indiana

Bosh on/off floor	MIN	Pace	OffRtg	DefRtg	NetRtg	+/-
Bosh on floor	154	92.8	107.3	99.9	+7.3	+18
Bosh off floor	91	96.1	103.4	83.3	+20.2	+28

Heat efficiency vs. Indiana

Lineup	MIN	Pace	OffRtg	DefRtg	NetRtg	+/-
Two bigs	189	92.7	103.4	94.2	+9.1	+23
James at PF, Bosh at C	10	96.0	153.6	110.2	+43.3	+10
James at PF, other big at C	30	97.3	121.5	72.2	+49.3	+28
Other	15	107.4	73.5	110.3	-36.8	-15

Heat efficiency, 2011-12 (including playoffs)

On the floor	MIN	Pace	OffRtg	DefRtg	NetRtg	+/-
Bosh, James & Wade	1,214	95.5	108.1	95.8	+12.4	+318
James & Wade w/o Bosh	271	94.7	117.2	92.2	+25.0	+129
James w/o Bosh or Wade	652	92.7	101.6	98.0	+3.6	+39
Wade w/o Bosh or James	86	87.4	85.1	98.2	-13.1	-22

http://hangtime.blogs.nba.com/2012/05/14/stats-without-bosh-heat-should-go-small-vs-pacers/