A lot has been said already this season about the new NBA rule that prohibits players from glancing sideways at the referees without receiving a technical foul.  On the surface, not a bad idea - Rasheed Wallace and his proclivity for vehement disagreement are well documented, but it also should work to cut down on the constant histrionics that had begun to occur on virtually every call of every game over the last few years.

There is one problem with the rule, however: the referees in charge of enforcing it are absolutely atrocious.

Case in point: in the fourth quarter of tonight's game between the Memphis Grizzlies and Sacramento Kings, Grizzlies forward Rudy Gay came down hard on a rebound attempt and hobbled around, doubled over, as the Kings took the ball the other way.  When the offensive flow came back to the Grizzlies end, Gay, who was clearly still in great pain, made a nice play to get into the paint and pick up an offensive rebound before being fouled.  At the end of the play, he took the ball and spiked it into the floor before limping to the foul line, clearly in pain with a leg injury.

Whistle: technical foul.  Not allowed to do that.

ESPN analyst Bill Walton leapt to the defense of the refs after the replay was shown, insisting that because the rule states that spiking the ball will result in a technical foul, they needed to call a technical foul.  He even threw out a couple of other rules - can't spend more than three seconds in the paint, for example - to illustrate his point.

That's nonsense.  It's common knowledge that the officiating in the NBA is historically awful.  Nothing new there.  But apparently, they are also unable to adapt to a given situation.  When Gay threw the ball down, he wasn't doing it to show up the refs or attempting to injure anyone - he was merely exhibiting a natural, frustrated response to pain.  If the whistle failed to blow, no one would have thought anything of it.  But by refusing to make exceptions where exceptions are justified - even the police will let speeding and other minor infractions go from time to time, especially with a valid reason - the referees are making more of a mockery of the game than arguing players ever have.