Celtics fans can take a long, deep, sigh of relief this morning.
Despite last night's, shall we say, less-than-stellar officiating performance, Tommy Heinsohn has not gone to an early grave. In fact, he's alive and well (albeit a bit angry), and stopped by the Dennis & Callahan show this morning to discuss last night's debauchery.
WEEI[Heinsohn] also talked about the league allowing Dwight Howard to get away with throwing elbows and the need to rescind one of Kendrick Perkins' technical fouls.
Heinsohn felt the officials were making poor calls on Wednesday night, especially Ed F. Rush. "This guy has had no common sense," Heinsohn said of Rush. "I don’t know why he’s still around. He’s got a history. I’ve been watching the game all these years, I just marvel at how they let him keep refereeing."
After Howard continued to catch Celtics players with elbows in Game 5, Heinsohn said the league isn't enforcing flagrant fouls on him. "One thing that bothers me very, very much is this guy Howard belted [Kevin Garnett] in the prior game three times, and they call a flagrant foul after they review the film when this guy actually had three flagrant fouls in this ballgame and nobody every called it," Heinsohn said. "So somehow or another, they give him a little leeway, and last night was another example of what he’s capable of doing."
As for the two technicals on Perkins, Heinsohn felt that it's necessary for the league to rescind one. "Well, you might as well hand the title to the Orlando Magic if they don’t, because we will have no big guys potentially. We ought to get Eddie F. Rush to play center against Howard and let Howard wrap him around."
You can find the full audio HERE.
I agree 100% on the elbows. We can call them "incidental" as much as we want, and while he's not exactly head-hunting, he's throwing the 'bows with reckless abandon. At some point the league has to step in and protect the players.
I can live with him swiping at Pierce and Rondo as they get knocked down penetrating -- that's borderline dirty, but it's hard playoff basketball. But the constant elbows are uncalled for. One or two in a heated game are excusable, but after each rebound and hook shot is not.
Hopefully the scary Davis incident (even though that elbow appeared to actually be inadvertent) will force the league's hand. You can't have basketball players stumbling around the court like a boxer that just took a right-hook to the dome.
