Heat unhappy over fouls against LeBron

The Miami Heat were only partially satisfied with a $20,000 fine levied against forward Josh McDaniels of the Charlotte Bobcats for a hard foul on LeBron James in Wednesday night’s game.

And James said it won’t change the way he plays when their first-round NBA playoff series continues on Saturday night, but he and the Heat are increasingly frustrated by how aggressively opponents are permitted to play him.

“We’ve had dialogue with the league,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “They made their decision. At least half of it we agree upon, that it should have been a flagrant and it should have been reviewed during the course of the game.”

McRoberts was issued a common foul before the NBA upgraded the penalty a day later to a flagrant-2 and levied the fine. Had a flagrant-2 been called during the game, he would have been ejected.

The Heat were unhappy that the referees didn’t review the play immediately.

“I already know it’s going to be a headline tomorrow: ‘LeBron is crying for fouls,”‘ said James, who added that he will continue to attack. “That’s not me. I don’t want that. I don’t want that at all.”

James said that he has seen several hard fouls reviewed in other recent NBA playoff games and wondered why McDaniels’ didn’t merit the same treatment.

Heat forward Udonis Haslem said he thought McRoberts’ hit looked “pretty bad.”

Replays didn’t seem to indicate the Bobcats’ forward was making a play on the ball and showed his elbow hitting James around the throat and chin.

“It looked intentional,” Haslem said.

Obviously, the Bobcats suggested otherwise.

“If you watched the play; there was no hit, there was no attempt to hurt anyone,” said Bobcats coach Steve Clifford, who added that McRoberts was late with help defense on the play and was bracing himself for the impact with James, who is 6-8 and 250 pounds.

McRoberts said he thought the fine was unfair.