Rondo in, Howard Out: Double Standard

CHICAGO -- To all the prejudices and biases that complicate our tangled world, today we add "oafism." Rajon Rondo, as you probably know, all but defaced Brad Miller in the final frenetic seconds of Game 5 in the Best NBA First-Round Series Ever Played. Rondo leaped, popped him in the mouth, drew blood when Miller's tooth cut his lip, forced him to get a stitch job and left him so woozy that his eyeballs were peeking out of his eardrums.

It should have been whistled as a flagrant foul, which would have given the Chicago Bulls two free throws and possession of the ball. With Miller in no condition to attempt foul shots, a flagrant also would have let the Bulls pick a replacement shooter -- Ben Gordon, Kirk Hinrich -- to maybe make the two shots that Miller wound up missing. Knowing the top-this nature of buzzer-beater shotmaking in a memorable series with the Boston Celtics, who's to say Gordon, gutting it out on a strained hamstring shot up with painkillers, wouldn't have nailed another astounding game-winner and handed the Bulls a 3-2 lead with a home date tonight?

"You have to go for the basketball, and he didn't come near the ball. He came right across his face," said Bulls coach Vinny Del Negro, rightfully defending his player. "I agree that it's a hard playoff foul, but it's still a flagrant and you have to call it a flagrant."

Said Miller: "I understand hard fouls. But when you get hit in the mouth over the shoulders, that stuff just gets old after a while."

Yet the officials ruled that Rondo, the 6-1 point guard who might weigh 180 pounds after a dozen consecutive dinners at Fatburger, was going for the basketball and not the grill of Miller, a plodding, 7-foot, 270-pound center. And Wednesday, in the wake of a controversial Boston victory, the league office upheld the call. "We felt Rondo was making a basketball play and going for the basketball after a blown defensive assignment by the Celtic team," said Stu Jackson, the NBA's vice president of operations. "In terms of the criteria that we use to evaluate a flagrant foul penalty one, generally we like to consider whether or not there was a windup, an appropriate level of impact and a follow-through. And with this foul, we didn't see a windup, nor did he follow through. So for that reason, we're not going to upgrade this foul to a flagrant foul penalty one."

Translated, the league took care of the little guy and blew off the big dope. Oafism, we'll call it. Or, positionism. This on a day when Orlando's Dwight Howard, the 6-11 physical specimen embraced in the sport as Superman, was correctly suspended for Game 6 after delivering a wicked elbow to the head of Philadelphia's Samuel Dalembert. And this on a day when the Miami Heat and Atlanta Hawks, a few hours later, traded ugly takedowns in a nasty Game 5 in which Dwyane Wade was called for a flagrant foul on a play that certainly wasn't as obvious as Rondo's facial. Why was Howard suspended and Rondo not even punished? Why the double standard? Shouldn't the Bulls and Magic wonder why Rondo gets to play his Game 6 and Howard doesn't? And if the roles were reversed -- Miller as the perpetrator, Rondo as the victim -- don't you think Miller would have been flagrantly flagged?

"I was going for the ball," insisted Rondo, as the league lapped up his argument. "Miller, I don't know, he's probably 290, maybe more than that. I'm a little guy, so I had to go for the foul hard. I wasn't trying to take a guy out or hit his head. But I think he took it up in his right hand and I tried to make sure he couldn't finish. I may have hit him in the head, but I went through his arm first, trying to get to the ball and make sure he couldn't get a two-point shot up. I'm not a dirty player. I'm just coming out there and trying to give him a hard foul, nothing flagrant."

Argued Celtics coach Doc Rivers: "It was a great foul by Rondo. You always talk about playoff basketball, no layups. Rondo did it on the very last play, and it won the game for us."

In a compelling postseason with rising TV ratings, the league doesn't need officiating inconsistencies to detract from the gripping action. We aren't far removed from the Tim Donaghy point-shaving scandal that, while apparently an isolated case, red-flagged some suspicions about hanky-panky. As a difficult game to officiate, pro basketball always will have a gray area when it comes to calls. But it's inconceivable that on the very same night in the playoffs, one hard shot to the head results in a suspension while another hard shot to the head warrants no action. Jackson is dead wrong about Rondo going after the ball. In the final seconds of overtime, with Miller on an unimpeded path to a game-tying basket, Rondo turned into one of Bill Belichick's linebackers on a goal-line tackling mission and went straight for the face. In Memphis on a December evening, it's a flagrant foul. In Sacramento on a March afternoon, it's a flagrant foul.

In Boston in the playoffs, in front of rabid Celtics fans who would have rioted if a flagrant was called, the refs swallowed their whistles. They didn't have the guts to do the right thing. Never in a million years did Miller think he'd get that call. "Definitely not," he said. "Not in Boston. They're not going to turn it over, that's for sure."

Meanwhile, the NBA had no trouble taking swift action against Howard, whose absence tonight opens a door for the 76ers to win Game 6 and possibly steal the series. Howard wasn't ejected Tuesday night because, according to Jackson, none of the officials saw the elbow make contact. Yet the league felt compelled to issue the one-game suspension anyway, sticking to the letter of the law. "They saw the elbow thrown but they couldn't determine whether or not the elbow actually made contact with Dalembert," Jackson said. "This was an elbow that was thrown that made contact above the shoulders and by rule there's an automatic suspension."

But Rondo can slam a player in the face with his arm and get a pass? I don't understand the vast differences in foul severity, especially when one can argue that Rondo's shot effectively cost Chicago the game. Uniformity is what we want from the NBA. There was none on Weird Wednesday. "I'm very disappointed but I have to respect the NBA's decision," Howard said in a statement. "I didn't intend to hurt anyone. I have complete faith in my teammates that they will come out and get the job done."

Oddly, hoops people have been imploring Howard for years to play more angrily. Who knew he'd become Bill Cartwright, he of the deadly elbows, overnight? Howard even nailed a key teammate, shooting guard Courtney Lee, with an unintentional elbow, knocking him out of tonight's game with a fractured sinus. Might Dwight need to find a middle ground?

The zebra politics have led to predictable verbal jostling by coaches. The Celtics didn't cover themselves in glory when they complained about calls after their Game 4 loss, with a published report in Boston citing "a source" who noted two of Sunday's officials were from the Chicago area -- and that family members were wearing Bulls garb. Funny, but I don't think officiating was the problem when Paul Pierce -- who redeemed himself with a spectacular late shooting blitz Tuesday -- failed to guard Gordon on his game-tying three-pointer. Before the suspension, 76ers coach Tony DiLeo said Howard was being allowed to camp in the lane by officials ignoring the three-second rule, leading to his 24-point, 24-rebound game.

"Dwight Howard had a great game and he's a great player, but he just lives in the three-second lane on offense and defense," DiLeo said. "He doesn't need any advantages."

To which Stan Van Gundy, the mouthy Orlando coach, responded: "Are we going to talk about the game or am I supposed to come up here and lobby for the calls I want next game? Instead of just trying to play Dwight better, I guess they're going to ask the league to step in and help them out. Let's just play the games. I guess (the officials) are the only reason Dwight is having success in the series. It has nothing to do with the fact that he's good." Van Gundy should have been careful about what he wished for. With little-used Tony Battie replacing Howard and Mickael Pietrus and J.J. Redick replacing Lee, the Magic have little chance of winning in Philly.

I wouldn't say the same about the Bulls. They should have won Game 5, and that confidence will carry them to victory tonight. How did they blow a 10-point lead in the fourth quarter? Derrick Rose, for one, is playing like a rookie at times, throwing the ball away when Rondo takes great care of the rock. Del Negro, too, continued to be exposed as a newcomer who'd never coached in his life before general manager John Paxson appointed him last summer. Shouldn't the Bulls have been double-teaming Pierce as he was tying the game at the fourth-quarter buzzer and dominating the overtime period? Ray Allen had fouled out. Kevin Garnett probably won't play until October. And the Bulls are letting Pierce romp with only John Salmons to beat?

"I thought about doubling him a lot, but he fades away and he's 6-8," Del Negro said. "We've played him a lot of different ways in the series. He's a tough cover."

That said, the Bulls have younger legs and a riled-up home crowd to fuel them against the tired, thinner Celtics. When a series features three overtime games in the first five -- an NBA postseason record -- aren't we destined to go to a Game 7 on Saturday night?

"We had our chances, and that's what makes it tough," said Chicago's Joakim Noah. "But we'll be back. We have another chance, so it's been a learning experience for all of us. A learning experience is not an excuse because I still feel we can win this series."

"We've got another game," Miller said. "We'll strap it on and see what happens."

Sounds like the Oaf wants payback. Not that he doesn't deserve it.