Quote:
Originally posted by Brian Watson
I throw a question out to the "old timers" that might have watch Wilt play. Did he not foul out because he didn't foul, or was it because the refs cut him slack like Shaq gets.
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Brian, your post is a little confusing. At first, it sounds like you're saying that Phil and the Lakers expect the refs to cut Shaq some slack; you seem to say that they did not (since he had 3 offensive fouls), and that that's a good thing.
But then you end with the comment I quoted above, which says that Shaq
does get slack. So I'm not really sure where you're going with this.
My personal opinion is that a couple of the offensive fouls on Shaq were borderline. Could easily have been no-called and nobody would've said anything. But there was clearly contact, so I'm not going to say too much about the calls. I don't think Shaq gets a whole lot of "slaq" from the officials. He gets hammered by defenses, but b/c he's so big, he is not always put at a disadvantage, so some of it is let go. On offense, his best "move" is obviously to try to back his man down and my guess is that the officials were trying to clamp down on that tactic and not let him push defenders out of the way with his butt.
Just my thoughts,
Chuck