Houston Rockets coach Kevin McHale has responded to the Los Angeles Clippers’ claims that there is an odd foul discrepancy between the two teams.
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The Clippers were hit with 40 personal fouls in Game 2 earlier this week, but many of them were intentional as coach Doc Rivers adopted the hacking strategy to take advantage of certain players being poor from the free throw line.
Houston were called for 27 fouls, while they set franchise records with 64 free throw attempts and made 42 in the game to even up the series after dropping Game 1 in disappointing fashion.
James Harden and Dwight Howard were amongst those to receive foul calls in their favour, but McHale had a simple message to the Clippers if they wanted to see the foul numbers fall.
“James gets fouled and he doesn’t get calls,” McHale said, according to ESPN.
“He attacks the rim he doesn’t get every call. I heard them saying we shot too many free throws, well quit hacking us. You shoot a lot of free throws when you decide you get in the penalty and start hacking everybody. Yeah, you end up shooting a lot of free throws when you put in your backup, backup center to just grab guys, that just happens.”
This series has threatened to boil over after Matt Barnes was forced to apologise to Harden’s mother after trash talking her during the game, while Rivers has also engaged in an exchange with Rockets fans but that was with all parties happily involved in a joking nature.
However, the physical play from both teams has certainly been a talking point, and with so much on the line moving into Game 3 on Friday night, it is expected that there will be a few more choice words and actions said and made before the winner advances to the Western Conference finals.
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