That's Sheed, he is what he is. But as a result of his whining (and yes, he does it more than almost any player in the NBA, I'd be crazy to dispute that) he gets T'ed up quickly and (believe it or not) seldom gets the benefit of the doubt on a borderline call. So he whines too much and he pays for it. Where's the problem?
If you remove Sheed from the equation, I don't think the Pistons are any better or worse than the average NBA team in this department. But I'd note that in the playoffs, the pressure ratchets up and every call is life or death. Hell, I'd rather see a team that's pissed about each and every thing that goes against them than one that just lets things slide. They care. How many NBA games, playoff games even, have you watched and been able to point to a guy and say, "he doesn't give a crap. He's stuck a postage stamp on this game and mailed it in"? Plenty.
I'd also note that the Spurs are a Vlade Divac addition away from having the best flop-artists in the NBA. That seems to be overlooked in this series and especially overlooked in Cunningham's article, which was somewhere between "whiny" and "insipid". If the Pistons whine too much, the Spurs take dives like they're playing for the World Cup, and it's not just Ginobili, either.
Finally, ref baiting is an NBA Finals tradition. Nobody, but NOBODY was more of a ref-baiter than Phil Jackson. You could cross Jim Boeheim and Larry Brown (my two favorite basketball coaches, by the way, for obvious reasons), and not get near the level of ref baiting that Big Chief Triangle has engaged in over the years. And he's got 9 rings.
So maybe, just maybe, grousing to the Three Blind Mice (as Charley Rosen calls the refs) works. And if it works, why not do it? Of course, taking a dive to draw a foul usually works, too. So basically, you've got two teams that are willing to go the extra mile to win. Where's the problem?