Late in the fourth quarter of Tuesday night's close win over Atlanta, Gilbert Arenas was whistled for a couple of questionable calls, including offensive fouls on two straight trips down the floor. He lingered to argue with the refs after a couple of them, which Coach Eddie Jordan is not thrilled about:
"You have to have the proper behavior and not react to an official's call or noncall," Jordan said. "He's gotten some calls against him that maybe should have gone his way, and he's verbalized it. He's come close to getting a tech or maybe even getting thrown out. But that's just part of it. He has to come around and be more composed and have a clearer head."
One of the two charge calls on Arenas was particularly egregious, where he drove to the lane and got hit by a player running backwards and the foul was called on Gilbert. The very next trip down, Caron Butler got an "and-1" on an identical play, and the camera found Gilbert to be visibly annoyed by this. Gilbert's take on that call:
"If you are going through the lane and people are moving and people are calling charges on you, that does have an effect on you."
The real problem here isn't Arenas, or his alleged need to adjust to the officiating. It's the refereeing of one Steve Javie. Now unless you've been a close follower of the top teams in the league, you may not recognize this official as being any better or worse than the rest. But after sitting in person at several playoffs and Finals games where Javie was involved, I can assure you that this guy has it in for star players, especially in their home building.
It's not that Javie is a terrible official, it's just that he likes to involve himself in the outcome of the game more than he should. He also has a tendency to consistently rule against the home team (and especially their best player) in any of those situations where the call is 50-50 (like a charge or a block). Laker fans have such a grudge against him for screwing their team over and over again, that even if he's present at a meaningless regular season game against Memphis, you can expect heavy boos to rain down during the pre-game introductions.
So let's not worry about Gilbert. He'll adjust to the way the game is called, and if he just goes into the home games that Javie's working with the knowledge that he's going to get screwed like the girl in the beginning of "The Accused," everything will be fine.
Comments (Page 1 of 1)
It was Javie's crew but he wasn't the one that made the worst call of all, it was actually Ed Malloy. After the fans (myself included) berated him for the next 90 seconds he walked to the corner of the court and started crying quietly to himself.
Oh and Brett, take a look
http://www.nba.com/blog/gilbert_arenas.html
You are correct, Unsilent. Not about the crying (well, maybe) but about Javie not making the worst of the two calls. He did make the other one though, the alleged push-off on Gilbert which usually is let go in those situations.
Yeah, I was in Javie's ear all night. I don't dislike him as a ref but he had zero control of the game, of course he was assisted by two schmucks straight out of the WNBA.
There were a few blown charge calls involving Butler too. Really poorly officiated in the 4th quarter. Four blown charge calls and non-calls against the Wizards could have made them lose a game they deserved to win.