Hassan Whiteside accused Cody Zeller of flopping, and the Heat center said it wasn’t an isolated incident by the Hornets.
Whiteside, via Jason Lieser of The Palm Beach Post:
“The flop-offs, man,” he said. “I thought the playoffs was physical. This ain’t physical, man.”
Heat guard Goran Dragic also complained about officiating, referencing Jeremy Lin.
Will Manso of Fox Sports Florida:
What does Charlotte say about that?
Hornets coach Steve Clifford, via Shandel Richardson of the SunSentinel:
“I didn’t see [Whiteside’s quotes], but I’d be surprised at that,” Clifford said. “I, mean, listen, I watch the films really closely. There hasn’t been…I mean, I don’t want…if you want to get into career flopping between the two rosters, it wouldn’t be close. So, I don’t…we don’t have anybody that flops. We haven’t had a flopping issue all year. I didn’t see those quotes. Actually, the NBA comes out with reports, they have them, officiating reports and I wouldn’t say that if you read those reports that they could have any complaints with the officials. Neither do we, by the way. But they certainly shouldn’t.”
Clifford dances around the issue. Of course, the Heat have more flopping experience. They have more of every type of experience. That doesn’t mean much about how often they’ve flopped in this series.
I see two teams trying to find the line between playing physically and getting an advantageous whistle, maybe concentrating a little too hard on that rather than just playing. That could improve as the series progresses.
There are two or three games remaining, and these teams are clearly already tired of each other. That won’t improve as the series progresses.
