Kings head coach Mike Brown has been fined $50K for “aggressively pursuing” a referee during the team’s Sunday loss in Milwaukee and for publicly criticizing the officiating after the game, the NBA announced today in a press release (Twitter link).
Brown was ejected in the fourth quarter of Sunday’s game when he confronted and berated referee Intae Hwang to express his displeasure with how the game was being called (Twitter video link via Sean Cunningham of Fox 40 Sacramento).
During his postgame press conference, Brown brought the team’s video coordinator and a laptop to show reporters specifically which calls led to his ejection (Twitter video link via Carmichael Dave).
“The referees are human, and they’re going to make mistakes, but you just hope that there’s some sort of consistency and there’s some sort of communication between the refs,” Brown said. “The refs tonight, they were great, they communicated with me all night. But in terms of consistency, you guys saw it right here. In my opinion, the consistency wasn’t here tonight.”
It’s a significant penalty for Brown relative to other fines that players and coaches have received for criticizing the officiating, which suggests that the league wasn’t pleased by the Kings coach’s on-court outburst — or by the extra preparation that preceded his postgame comments and the visual examples that accompanied them.
By comparison, Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic was fined $25K for a postgame rant ripping the officiating earlier this month.
Anger and complaining are one thing , but the laptop went too far in the leagues mind. Reminiscent of pat bev showing the camera to the ref lol
So you pay to see the refs? Interesting.
They’re part of the game so, yeah everybody does.
Mike Brown’s take-that-for-data moment.
Heavier fines when you back up your frustration with video evidence.
I don’t agree with what he did, but we all watch and we all see the inconsistency of officials. I don’t think it’s getting worse but it’s not getting any better.
I don’t think the NBA really cares since the officiating issue just causes them to stay relevant during the NFL season with the discourse. Everyone can see how bad the officials are but it never changes.
Pity basketball can’t do what baseball is doing and replace the officials with robots (at least for the strike zone). The officials in the NBA are almost all Angel Martinez in terms of ego and quality.
While not *all* unbalanced officiating is because the refs suck, more than half of it is. That’s too much.
You mean angel hernandez? I’m not even sure Tim Donaghy was worse than him
The disrespect of not even capitalizing angel’s name, but doing it for a convicted game fixer really conveys how you feel about him. Relatable.
NBA has a gambling problem that changes outcomes but NBA is making money off it so they don’t care. I watched it last night and it was so obvious.
So all the Warriors titles are tainted?
Can’t have it both ways.
i can tell you didn’t watch the game. Jackson came down on Curry’s back and pulled him to the floor and no call. Kuminga goes to the rim and all arm and no call. Curry knocked to the ground he is called for a offensive foul even TNT announcers said what did he do? 40 FT to 10 FT by a team that took over half of their shots from 3 pt line. Yes tell me again
THAT will teach those pesky NBA coaches to show evidence that they’re right!!!
Shouldn’t the laptop be fined for capturing the ineptitude of the refs? These fines are crazy. NBA just trying to line the betting sites pockets.
I actually thought he was extremely respectful during his postgame interview lol
Nobody pays to see these goofy refs ruin the game.
Refs need more significant punishment for missing calls.
The fact the media can’t talk to them, they don’t take responsibility for missed calls. It’s actually BS
“Aggressively pursuing” a ref sounds better than “demonstratively showing” the inconsistency of refs