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BOSTON Rasheed Wallace rips refs after getting fifth technical of season
The way Rasheed Wallace sees it, his latest technical foul call was a flop.
The Boston big man said Friday that Raptors forward Hedo Turkoglu duped the referees into giving Wallace his fifth technical of the season by flopping.
"They've got to know that he's a ... flopper. That's all Turkododo do," Wallace said after the Celtics beat the Raptors 116-103. "Flopping shouldn't get you nowhere. He acts like I shot him.
"That's not basketball, man. That's not defense. That's garbage, what it is. I'm glad I don't have too much of it left."
Commissioner David Stern has complained about flopping because it's a way to fool the officials, but the league has been unable to find a way to punish or prevent it.
Wallace is the NBA's career leader with 296 technicals and 29 ejections. He said some of it is because of his reputation and lack of status in the NBA.
"Let the Golden Child ( LeBron James) do that, or one of the NBA Without Border kids do that, it's all fine and dandy," he said.
"This game is watered down, watered down with all that flopping. They're setting rules on us to the point where you're taunting if you dunk on somebody. Paul dunked it and then he didn't say nothing, but it's a tech."
Paul Pierce was called for a technical after he dunked on Chris Bosh and sent him to the floor. Pierce hovered over Bosh as he remained on the ground, apparently injured.
Elsewhere
DETROIT: Guard Ben Gordon missed Friday's game and it's uncertain when he'll return from a left ankle sprain.
GOLDEN STATE: Coach Don Nelson, will miss three more games while recovering from a bout with pneumonia. The team said he would return after the Warriors' game next Tuesday in Denver. Golden State plays the Lakers on Saturday and Indiana on Monday. Assistant Keith Smart is coaching the Warriors during Nelson's absence.
WASHINGTON: Abe Pollin, the NBA's longest-tenured owner, who died Tuesday at 85, was remembered by Wes Unseld and others Friday during a funeral at the Washington Hebrew Congregation. Unseld helped the Washington Bullets win the 1978 NBA title, and later served as both coach and general manager of Pollin's team, which was renamed the Wizards because Pollin believed too many lives in Washington were being lost by the senseless use of handguns.
Pollin gave Washington the Capital Centre, the Verizon Center, the Wizards, the NHL's Capitals and the WNBA's Mystics. He sold the Capitals and Mystics in recent years to Ted Leonsis, who called the service for Pollin "very heartfelt."
A public memorial service is scheduled for Tuesday night at the Verizon Center. Observer News Services
