Paul George went all in on calling out NBA referees Friday night.
George, along with Oklahoma City Thunder teammates Russell Westbrook and Steven Adams, fouled out in the final four minutes of OKC’s loss to the Los Angeles Clippers on Friday night, marking the second time three starters have fouled out in regulation in the past 10 seasons. After the game, George made sure to voice his disgust for the game’s officiating, and held very little back.
“It’s just bad officiating,” George told reporters, via ESPN’s Ohm Youngmisuk. “I’m sorry, just bad officiating. We don’t get a fair whistle. We haven’t gotten a fair whistle all year. … Somebody’s got to look into this. It’s getting out of hand, where we somehow just walk teams to the line. And there’s nobody that gets more contact. If I don’t speak for myself, I speak for Russ. There’s nobody that gets more contact than Russ going to the basket. And it’s just crazy.
“I don’t understand it. It’s a piece of s— being on that floor,” George continued. “We giving everything we got. We’re playing hard. We’re getting grabbed. We’re getting scratched, clawed, held, shoved. And there’s nothing for it. The officials just get to walk out, and there’s nothing that penalizes them for not officiating the game the right way.”
The Clippers had 46 free throw attempts Friday night, compared to 26 for the Thunder. George, who watched the last 3:49 from the bench, finished with 15 points and six rebounds.
The NBA has pretty tight rules on bashing officiating, so it’s highly likely that George’s wallet will be getting a little lighter in the coming days, but that didn’t even slightly deter the star from speaking out.
“It’s nothing we can do,” George said. “I’m going to lose money on this. We speak up, we lose money. There’s nothing I can do to change that. It is what it is. There’s gotta be a change, but there’s nothing that I can do.”
