I know it's the NBA, but an earlier post discussed the defensive 3-second violation in Sunday's Lakers-Jailblazers game, and I thought I would follow it up with the comments from Scottie Pippen last night...both local papers here - the Oregonian and Vancouver's Columbian - carried articles from Pippen's meeting with the media yesterday...on Sunday, Bennett Salvatore ejected Pippen after he chucked the ball about 25 rows up into the stands - Pippen was mad about the 3 second defensive call which had just been made - Mitchell Butler poked ball away from Shaq...the explanation given after the game was that the steal was only possible because Butler was standing in the key for a very long time not guarding anyone, so when he batted the ball away, the ref called the violation...fans threw stuff on the court, Pippen tossed a food tray on the court as he was leaving, etc...Pippen blamed it all on the refs and said that he didn't blame the fans for throwing stuff...he said the refs are out to get the Blazers and the refs need to realize that people are there to watch him, not the refs...it's an interesting artice...check it out at
http://www.oregonlive.com/sports/...the article is titled "Playing With Fire"...the only voice of sanity was Steve Kerr who said "if there is a conspiracy, maybe what we need to do is just shut up!" Hmmmm - ya think???