Detroit Pistons head coach Stan Van Gundy was not happy with the lack of calls against Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James in game one of the playoffs series between the two teams. Van Gundy was not surprised, though:
In the video, you can clearly hear Van Gundy saying: “A couple calls have upset our guys… They’ve got to understand: LeBron’s LeBron. They’re not gonna call offensive fouls on him, he gets to do what he wants. They’ve got to understand that.”
This is a pretty common complaint against players like LeBron: “He gets superstar calls.” Well SVG, like it or not, popular players like LeBron are going to get more calls than the average player on, say, the Pistons. This shouldn’t detract from LeBron’s greatness at all, since all players of his caliber have the sympathy of the refs more than the average player. It’s just the way the league is. It does sound like Van Gundy understands that. He’s not complaining, per say, but rather saying that his players need to learn to accept it.
Detroit’s probably in for a rough series; 1-seed vs. 8-seed upsets don’t happen too often. However, through the first half, the Pistons have done an excellent job of keeping up with the Cavs behind strong play from Marcus Morris.
