HEADLINE

Cuban rips refs after Mavs lose to Hawks

Field Level Media

February 23, 2020 at 4:06 pm.

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban renewed his beef with NBA officials after a controversial call helped seal a 111-107 win by the Atlanta Hawks over his team on Saturday night.

Atlanta took a four-point lead when John Collins scored on an offensive rebound after Trae Young’s drive was blocked by Delon Wright with 8.4 seconds left. Wright was whistled for goaltending, but the call was reversed after a video review. However, the Collins basket was allowed to stand since he was shooting when the whistle blew.

After the game, Cuban sent a series of tweets.

“Just when you think the NBA officiating can’t get any worse, guess again. This is absurd,” Cuban began.

“So they call a goaltend. They literally blew the whistle that it was a goaltend. There was a putback after the whistle. After review they said no goaltend but count the basket ? WTF is that ? That’s NBA officiating.”

“But wait there is more. 1 of the refs told us it was an inadvertent whistle, so it was not goaltending. Doesn’t matter that people stopped . They thought the whistle came after the putback. So the basket counted. So what [were] they reviewing if it wasn’t a goaltend?”

Rodney Mott, the crew chief for the game, gave the following explanation to a reporter afterward.

“The ball was blocked and reviewed. The ball hit the rim, so it was deemed an inadvertent whistle because it was ruled a good block. By rule, it’s an inadvertent whistle. It’s Rule 2. Because [Collins] was in his shooting motion when my whistle blew, it’s deemed a continuation, so therefore, the basket counts.”

Cuban, who has racked up $2.6 million in fines since buying the team 20 years ago, said the problem has been a constant over the past two decades.

“Refs have bad games. Crews have bad games. But this isn’t a single game issue. This is the same (expletive) that has been going on for 20 years. Hire former refs who think they know how to hire, train and manage. Realize 2 years later they can’t. Repeat”

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