The Clippers had their fair share of critics over the number of technical fouls they racked up this season and Game 6 in Memphis added to the total, with Chris Paul ejected for picking up his second “T” in the fourth quarter.
Matt Barnes, one of the culprits, had a few things to say on the subject. However, he caught himself when referring to official Joe Crawford, one of the crew working Friday night’s game.
“Whew, man, Joey Crawford. Boy, I’ll tell you, Joey Crawford,” Barnes said, drawing laughter before pausing. “He had a good game last night.
“We really had a problem with the refs all year and it came back and bit us in the playoffs. If I come back next year I think that’ll be a real teaching poiint for the coaching staff and the players, that we have to police ourselves and we can’t get into with the refs. It’s like trying to beat the police.”
Barnes was complimented for the restraint he showed at certain points.
“I tried,” he said. “I saw a couple highlights last night where I thought ‘Whoa, I didn’t get thrown out for that.’ I think for the most part the refs understood it was a lot of emotion, a hostile environment, and they did what they had to do to control the game.”
The physical series was a bit of a culmination of frustration for the Clippers, whose primary big men — forward Blake Griffin and center DeAndre Jordan — took the brunt of the pounding all season.
“They’ll beat you up in the playoffs and you’ve got to be ready for that,” Barnes said. “I think our guys did a great job this year because I really felt we did get beat up a lot. Coming from the Lakers where you get a lot of calls, and coming to this team where you don’t get a lot of calls, you really see people get beat up, sometimes you lose your cool. I’m really happy to say I didn’t get a tech the last two months of the season.”