The Oklahoma City Thunder pulled off a memorable victory on Thursday evening, outpacing the Portland Trail Blazers despite an explosive, 51-point showing from Damian Lillard. On the heels of that win, the Thunder faced a difficult back-to-back match-up in Los Angeles against the Clippers and, despite a competitive effort, Oklahoma City eventually succumbed to the tune of a 118-110 loss.
On paper, that seems like a normal result, as the Clippers are a playoff-caliber team operating in a friendly environment. However, there were plenty of fireworks along the way, including the fact that Paul George, Russell Westbrook and Steven Adams all fouled out during regulation, marking the first time since 2014 that a trio of starters suffered that fate.
With that as the backdrop, George unleashed on the officiating and he wasn’t subtle in doing so.
“It’s just bad officiating,” George said, via Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN. “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. 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.”
Within the context of the same interview, George acknowledged that he was “going to lose money on this” and he admitted that there is “nothing (he) can do” to change the officiating himself. What he did do, however, was essentially call for NBA commissioner Adam Silver to jump into the fray.
Thunder’s Paul George on officiating in loss to Clippers: “I don’t know if it’s Adam Silver that’s got to kick in and look at this. We expect the officiating to be professionals.” pic.twitter.com/K6ZUrBc6sl
— Ben Golliver (@BenGolliver) March 9, 2019
In the grand scheme, the Thunder losing to the Clippers on a Friday night in March wouldn’t grab national headlines, even if it was a highly entertaining game between two quality teams. When a legitimate MVP candidate wades into the officiating waters to this degree, however, heads will turn and, as George himself noted, a monetary reprimand will probably be on the way in the near future.
