Ironic

So the other days I made a good long rant about how flopping is ruining the game of basketball.

After Game 2 of the Houston/Jazz series, both Tracy McGrady and Rockets coach Rick Adelman complained to reporters about an offensive call made against Rockets forward Luis Scola for pushing Andrei Kirilenko out of bounds.

Houston was down three at that point, and right after the call was made, McGrady passed the ball to teammate Bobby Jackson, who nailed a 3-pointer that would have tied the game with under two minutes left.

The bucket was waved off, and the Jazz went on to win.

Now, I saw the play live, and I've watched it several times since as morning shows on ESPN replayed it over and over, discussing the controversy.

And Andrei flopped. He's a European, what can you expect?

But seriously, Scola did initiate contact with his arm as Andrei was trying to close out on McGrady. That's a foul. And yes, Andrei reacted like he'd been shot. Correct call, Andrei exaggerated the result.

And Scola had been getting away with murder the entire series thus far.

In one instance, he grabbed Andrei's arm with both hands to keep him from helping on defense. In another, he full-on two-handed shoved a Jazz player who was going for a rebound. Neither of these fouls were called.

He's been clutching and grabbing and hacking all series, and getting away with it for the most part. Heck, the entire Rockets team got away with a lot of physical play last night. Aaron Brooks knocked Deron Williams on his backside while setting a pick that was more like a bodycheck in the second half. Dikembe Mutombo has at least three blocks that weren't even close to clean that were allowed by officials. The Rockets are desperate, and it shows.

ESPN's Mike and Mike this morning had the audacity to blame Houston's loss on this one call. The Rockets didn't lose because Scola was whistled for an offensive foul. The Rockets lost because they missed 10 free throws. The Rockets lost because McGrady scored one point in the fourth quarter. The Rockets lost because they were outrebounded when it mattered most late in the game.

I hate flopping, but in this case, I don't have a problem with a flop getting a foul called against a guy who'd been playing dirty all night.

So yes, I'm a pretty blatant homer. What are you going to do about it? :)