Wade blasts L2M reports: 'It's bad for our game'
The NBA's ongoing last-two-minute reports are essentially the league's way of owning up to mistakes made by officials during pivotal moments of games, even though they can't be used as a means to change the end results.
Chicago Bulls guard and three-time champion Dwyane Wade would rather abolish a process he feels is totally unnecessary than have to continue reading and hearing about the numerous errors made by referees.
"I hate 'em. I hate the two-minute reports," Wade said, according to ESPN's Nick Friedell. "I'll go on record again saying that. It's bad for our game to come back with those two-minute reports. Because they come back and they show the imperfectness of our game in two minutes. It's imperfect the whole game, let's not just breakdown the (last) two minutes. Players get called out and get fined for saying something to the refs, but the NBA is calling our refs out for making the wrong play or the right play, whatever the case may be.
"Let's just leave it alone. It's in the game, it's the call that's been made on the floor. We're mad at it then, let's move on. I hate the two-minute report that comes back and say, 'Ah, well, they should have called this.' Well, we lost. It's not making none of us feel better by saying, 'See, I told you.' We lost the game, so I hate 'em. But I've said that multiple times."
In narrow losses to both the Los Angeles Clippers and Denver Nuggets on Nov. 19 and 22, respectively, the last-two-minute reports revealed several calls that weren't made in the Bulls' favor. Particularly in Denver, All-Star guard Jimmy Butler was disadvantaged by the whistle - or lack thereof - twice, picking up an offensive foul when he was in perfect position, and getting bumped by Wilson Chandler on a drive to the basket.
Wade's biggest grievance, though, is how inconsistent the whistle is from the opening tip to the final buzzer, and not just in the final 120 seconds.
"It's the whole game, it's not just two minutes," Wade added. "There's things that affect the game from the beginning of the game that comes back in the (last) two minutes, which is unfortunate, but everyone's human. Some things you might have said earlier, you might have did earlier comes back and affects you late in the game. And it may come out in the two-minute report that it was the wrong thing. So what? It affected you and you lost."