LOS ANGELES — Toronto Raptors point guard Fred VanVleet criticized referee Ben Taylor for his handling of the Raptors’ 108-100 loss to the LA Clippers on Wednesday night at Crypto.com Arena.
VanVleet was unfazed in the postgame press conference and could face a hefty fine from the NBA.
“I don’t mind, fine, I don’t care,” VanVleet said. “I thought Ben Taylor was terrible tonight. [officials], there’s one or two, it’s just f— game up. It happened a couple of games in a row.
“[Losing on Monday at] Denver was obviously tough. You’re going to come out tonight and compete so hard, I’m going to take the bulls— technology that changes the whole dynamic of the game, changes the whole flow of the game.
“Most refs are doing their best. I like a lot of refs, they try hard, they’re very fair and they communicate well. And then you have others who just want to be D—. The game’s over. Nobody’s coming to see it—. They’re coming to see the players. “
The Raptors were called for 23 fouls to the Clippers’ 18, but LA had 31 free throw attempts compared to 14 for Toronto. VanVleet was whistled for a technical foul on Taylor with 7:02 left in the third quarter. At that point, the Clippers were up by seven.
Toronto trailed 70-68 at the end of the quarter, but the Clippers pushed the lead back to 12 before the start of the fourth.
The technical in the third quarter was VanVleet’s eighth of the season.
The Raptors made it two straight games in the second half where they were hit with technical fouls. In Monday’s 118-113 loss at Denver, official Scott Foster called Scotty Barnes for a technical foul before ejecting him with 28 seconds left in the fourth quarter. The Nuggets took the lead at one point.
Foster said in the postgame pool report that Barnes was ejected on a technicality because “he used language that directly questioned the integrity of the crew.”
Three of VanVleet’s eight tackles came from Taylor, with the other coming from another official on a play Taylor worked. VanVleet said “at a certain point as a player, you feel it personally and that’s never a good place to be.”
Asked Wednesday night if something he said prompted him to take the technology.
“There were times this year when I felt like our team was on the whistle,” Van Vleet said. “Especially after the night we had in Denver, it ended like that, so there were a couple of calls that we all disagreed with. If I told my team, ‘Come on, guys, let’s play.’ [through] bull —-‘ and it requires technology, which I think is a little crazy. What are we doing? You know what I mean?
“And there’s a fine line, I understand that. But I think the jurisdiction and the power trip that we’ve had this year with some of the officials in this league is getting out of hand and I’m going to get my fine. I don’t want to talk about it, but it’s ridiculous.”
