Blake Griffin: “Bad Referees – The Story of Game 4”

The Milwaukee Bucks swept Detroit Pistons in the opening round of the Eastern Conference playoffs, after last night’s 127-104 win at the Little Ceasars Palace. But there were a lot of controversies surrounding this victory. The Pistons fans and the players were not satisfied with the referees at all.

And to be completely honest, they were right.

If looking at the number of fouls, 31-21 in Milwaukee’s favor, there is nothing strange. Yes, the Pistons had more fouls, but that is something which isn’t too problematic.

But when looking at the number of free throws, you will realize why are the Pistons so mad. They had 12, and the Bucks had 41. Giannis alone had 20 of them.

Blake Griffin spoke about that openly after the game at the press conference.

“To me, that was the story of the game,” said Pistons’ All-Star. “I mean, Giannis shooting 8 more free throws than our entire team… you’re not going to win a game like that.”

The Pistons already were in foul trouble at the halftime, while leading, 56-52. Griffin himself, Andre Drummond, and Luke Kennard all had three fouls.

There were several pretty upsetting calls on Pistons’ players in the third sequence, and coach Dwayne Casey went off at the refs. That didn’t change anything on the court, except him getting a technical foul.

Milwaukee had 15 free throws in that sequence alone, while on the other side, Pistons had two. In the moments when Pistons pulled away to 8 points, Griffin was called his fourth.

The Bucks closed the period with a 17-3 run, with Pistons’ leader on the bench.

He was pretty upset after the game because of that.

“Their team shooting 41 (free throws), you’re not going to win the game like that,” power forward said.

With 1:37 before the break, Griffin was called a foul on Eric Bledsoe, and there really wasn’t any reason for such a decision by the officials.

The crowd began chanting “Ref you suck!” and Griffin joined those chants while standing at the edge of the paint waiting for Bledsoe to take his free throws.

While he spoke about the overall foul criteria, he told that part of the blame for giving Milwaukee this many free throws is definitely on Pistons, but that referees changed the course of the game with their calls and definitely affected the final result.

“Some of that is on us. Allowing them to get and-one, I did it twice I think, that’s on us. Some of that was out of our control, and I really think that that messed up the flow of the game for us.”

Coach Casey praised Griffin after the game saying that the best player of the Pistons played fantastic having in mind that he had issues with several injuries, and wasn’t able to give 100% of his abilities.

“Blake played his heart out with basically one leg,” said Casey, “He fought through a lot of pain, swelling. He gave everything he could to our team.”

The No.1 pick from 2009 draft, ended the game with 22 points, 6 assists, five boards, shooting 4 of 6 from behind the arc.

Coach Casey also stated at the press, that Griffin had a speech in the locker room after the game, in which he said that he sees a bright future with all the guys who are with the Pistons at the moment. Despite all the adversities and problems he had, Griffin is bound to stay in Detroit, and after a while, the team from the Motor City might have a solid foundation to make a crew which could make some noise in the Eastern Conference.

As for the Bucks.

This is the first success in the postseason series for the Bucks since 2001, and they did it classy.

Led by fantastic Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee defeated the Pistons with the second-highest combined margin in the history of the playoffs. They also beat their rivals by at least 16 points in each game, which is also something which hasn’t been seen in a long time.

They are now facing the Celtics in the semifinals of the Eastern Conference.