NBA fans did not enjoy Game 2 of the Western Conference Semifinals between the Lakers and Thunder at all last night. Following their 125-107 loss, Lakers coach JJ Redick tore the officials a new one and this morning ESPN's Jay Williams did the same.
On Friday's edition of Get Up, Williams and the rest of the analysts discussed the game and Redick's dressing down of the officials in the postgame press conference. While pretty much all of them agreed that it was a poorly officiated game, Williams went so far as to call it one of the worst he's ever seen.
"Last night was maybe one of the worst officiating games I've seen in a long time," Williams said.
Williams pointed to several instances where the officials chose not to call fouls on Oklahoma City, including some of the more egregious ones.
That said, fans didn't quite agree that it was as bad as Williams believes:
"Lakers and LeBron are crybabies. They would lose without the refs. Even though OKC flops all the time anyway," one user said dismissively.
"Stop making excuses. OKC has the better team in this series," another wrote.
"Watch off the ball LA on Shai. If you want whistles then lakers don’t have enough guys on the roster to drape over SGA without retiring on fouls before half," a third declared.
© Alonzo Adams-Imagn Images.
What Redick Said
Redick went off on the officials after the Lakers' Game 2 loss:
"I sarcastically said the other day, they're the most disruptive team without fouling," Redick said. "I mean, they have a few guys that foul on every possession. ... They're hard enough to play. They're hard enough to play, you've got to be able to just call them if they foul, and they do foul."
He was especially miffed over how he felt LeBron James was treated in the game:
"LeBron has the worst whistle of any star player I've ever seen," Redick said. "I mean, I've been with him two years now. The smaller guys, because they can be theatric, they typically draw more fouls, and the bigger players that are built like LeBron, it's hard for them. He gets clobbered. He got clobbered again tonight a bunch.
"And that's not like a new thing. That's not specific to this crew or this series. He gets fouled a lot and it doesn't [get called]. The guy gets hit on the head more than any player I've seen on drives, and it rarely gets called."
Game 3 will be tomorrow night at the Crypto.com Arena in LA.
