IMO, the referees have created the environment.
They have. Whiteside should have gotten a T' earlier for the same thing. You can't just purposely jump toward a guy after a dunk and elbow him in the face like Whiteside's done. I lost any respect I had for Whiteside after that - That's just a dirty play and the fact that he did it TWICE in this game shows it wasn't accidental. (experienced/respected) Big guys in the NBA don't do dirty stuff like that - it's just silly/immature and not respectful to your opponent. It's not "tough", it's just immature trying to start stuff w/ chippy plays like that ...
Not even to mention Whiteside's cheap tackle on Len when Len was half-turned away ... I would be surprised if Whiteside isn't suspended 5+ games for that. Honestly, I could even see him being suspended a game for just basically elbowing Len when he came down on his dunk.
Whiteside's size/strength was too much for Len to handle at times ... But that's not a knock on Len - His size is too much for practically EVERYBODY in the league right now. In a few years, we'll be saying the same thing about Len as he dominates players in size