Clippers' Paul George fined $35k for complaining about 'lies' of referees
Paul George of the Los Angeles Clippers is being fined $35,000 by the NBA for comments he made about the officiating following Wednesday night's game.
Clippers’ Paul George has been fined $35,000 for public criticism of the officiating.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) March 19, 2021
George was mighty upset after that game, which the Clippers lost to the Dallas Mavericks 105-89. He was frustrated with what he considered to be several non-calls from the referees, believing that fouls should have been called instead. At the post-game media conference, Clutch Points' Tomer Azarly asked George what his mid-game conversations with the referees were like. George took that opportunity to unload on the officiating.
I asked Paul George about conversations with officials.
“Just a bunch of lies. It’s a bunch of lies, they know what’s going on.”
Then adds:
“Our job is to be aggressive, attack. We can’t do much more than that, right? If they not gonna call it, they not gonna call it.” pic.twitter.com/2xTgrzZivc— Tomer Azarly (@TomerAzarly) March 18, 2021
"Just a bunch of lies. Can't go too much further than that. It's a bunch of lies. They know what's going on."
[...]
"Our job is to be aggressive, attack. We can't do much more than that, right? If they not gonna call it, they not gonna call it. And that's the suck part about it, because we're not flopping players. We're not players that's like throwing our bodies into other players. We play physical, no different than any other player in this league, you know?" George said. "There's nothing more that we can do. We're attacking, we're putting pressure at the rim, again. There's nothing that I feel — unless we just start diving and playing a flopping game — there's really nothing much that we can do."
Whether it's true or not, a player saying that the officials are telling them "a bunch of lies" is essentially inviting the NBA to take their money. And that's just what the NBA did.
George also called for the NBA to check the tape so they could see what he's talking about.
"We're putting a lot of pressure at the rim," George said via ESPN. "It's insane that we're not getting these calls. But it is what it is. It's nothing new to me. Hopefully, we'll send a bunch of clips in. League's gotta take a look at this."
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