[LRB]

Murph: Cubes has been much quieter in complaining about the refs this year. Admittedly, he could be quieter still. But I think that the NBA officiation has some major problems which David Stern and Ed Rush are refusing to address and just ignoring in hopes that they will go away. The Mavs have improved tremendously defensively this year. But I still feel that the refs call the games against us like we were playing last year. Same with us getting calls on offense. It seems the refs think of us as a jump shooting team only, so we don't get near the same percentage of calls of other teams which are preceived as driving and posting up more. Other teams have been allowed to mug Dirk, Nash, and Fin when we are on offense without a call. I don't mean just a little contact, but putting people on the floor contact. Yet on the next play on our defensive end, we get called for a touch foul that didn't affect anything. To our credit we have played through this fairly well. I just don't see this changing. Yeah we do get some calls. But it seems that the scale is tilted very muh in favor of our opponents. They get liberty to play very physical with us, but we do not get anywhere near the same opportunity. Maybe the refs can't believe that we are a good team and still want to treat us like a lottery team. I just think that all teams and players should get a fair shake. This pecking order system of the NBA officiating is not good for the game IMO. What is a foul for one player or team should be a foul for the other player or team. There needs to be a way for teams to intelligently rate and evaluate the refs and get rid of those who do not perform compatently. The refs really work for the owners as does David Stern and Ed Rush. I just get the feeling from a lot of refs that game is all about them. Like they want to decide which will be the best teams and players. The Mavs don't need to get caught up in this, but as a fan I'm sick of it.