Pistons Coach Stan Van Gundy Says LeBron James Gets All the Calls During Game 1

It's no secret that NBA superstars tend to get away with more than other players. It's also a common belief that the home team gets the benefit of the doubt from the referees.

With his team playing against LeBron James in Cleveland on Sunday, Detroit Pistons head coach Stan Van Gundy said his team must know the way he believes the game will be called.

"LeBron's LeBron."

In other words, he's getting the calls. That's just the way the game goes.

Van Gundy would like the referees to treat every player equally, superstar or not. But he also said his players can't get frustrated with the refs if they believe the calls aren't going their way; they need to figure out a way to play under those circumstances and not leave it up to the refs to make a call.

Of course, Van Gundy let the referees and the league know he would like to see the rest of the first-round playoff series officiated differently than the first half of Game 1.

UPDATE

After falling to Cleveland, 106-101, Van Gundy backed off his comments about James, per ESPN.com’s Nick Friedell:

"Look, I thought it evened out really well. But early on, I thought there were two pretty obvious offensive fouls down there on him. But it's two calls in an entire game after that.”

The veteran coach made sure to clarify that the officials did not ultimately decide the outcome:

“Look, the refereeing had nothing to do with tonight. They did a good job. It went both ways. I thought they did a really good job. It was decided by the players on the floor, as it should be."

[Ben Golliver, ESPN]