Toronto Raptors point guard Fred VanVleet took aim at NBA official Ben Taylor and criticised his poor refereeing in an expletive-filled rant after his side lost to the Los Angeles Clippers on Wednesday night.
At the Crypto.com Arena in LA, the Raptors fell to a brutal 108-100 defeat to the Clippers, with VanVleet scoring 13 points to go with 9 assists. However, the 29-year-old was left fuming after he was called for a technical foul by Taylor in the third quarter.
The technical was VanVleet's eighth of the season, and it came midway through the their quarter with the Clippers leading by seven at the time. The Raptors were called for 23 fouls to the Clippers' 18, but the home team had 31 free throw attempts compared to just 14 for Toronto.
VanVleet was clearly frustrated by the events and didn’t hold back in an explosive post-game press conference. The 2019 NBA champion is likely to receive a mega fine for his actions as calling out the officials so publicly and brazenly is heavily dealt with by the league.
“Man, I don’t mind. I’ll take a fine, I don’t really care,” an exasperated VanVleet began. “I thought Ben Taylor was f****** terrible tonight. I thought that on most nights, out of the three [officials] there’s one or two that just f*** the game up. It’s been like that a couple games in a row. Denver was tough, obviously, and then you come out tonight, compete pretty hard and in the third quarter I get a bull**** tech - changed the whole dynamic and flow of the game.
“Most of the refs are trying hard, I like a lot of the refs. They’re pretty fair. They communicate well, and then you got the other ones who just want to be d**** and it just kind of f**** the game up. Nobody is coming to see that s***.
“They’re coming to see the players. I think we’re losing a little bit of the fabric of what the NBA is and was. It’s been disappointing this season. You can look it up: most of my techs this year have been with Ben Taylor officiating so at a certain point as a player you feel it’s personal. It’s never a good place to be. It’s not why we lost tonight - we got outplayed - but it definitely makes it tougher to overcome.”
Remarkably, three of VanVleet’s eight technical calls have been issued by Taylor, with another coming from a different official in a game Taylor was working. It is the second successive game where the Raptors have struggled with a second-half technical foul after official Scott Foster called Scottie Barnes for a technical before ejecting him with 28 seconds remaining in Toronto’s 118-113 loss to the Denver Nuggets on Monday.
In the postgame pool report, Foster said Barnes was ejected on one technical because ‘he used verbiage that which directly questioned the integrity of the crew.’ Following the clash with the Clippers, VanVleet has done the same and admitted he’ll likely receive a fine for speaking out against officials.
The one-time All-Star added: “I think the jurisdiction and the power trip that we've been on this year with some of our officials in this league is getting out of hand and I’ll take my fine for speaking on it, but it’s f****** ridiculous.”
The 32-35 Raptors are next in action against the Los Angeles Lakers on Friday night. The LeBron James-less Lakers possess a record of 32-34 to sit ninth in the Western Conference - the same position occupied by the Raptors in the east.
