Late in the Houston Rockets' 120-111 loss to the Sacramento Kings On Tuesday, coach Ime Udoka left the decision to referee John Goble. Udoka was assessed a technical foul for complaining about several fouls against him that he believed had gone unpunished Domantas Sabonis on a drive past Alperen Sengunthen got in Goble's face, earned another technical foul and had to be restrained before leaving the field. Sengun, almost as angry as his trainer, also took a tech and was ejected.
After the game, Udoka was, as usual, blunt about what had upset him.
“Missed calls” he told reporters. “Obvious missed calls right in front of you. You're calling hectic, moving screens and little things like that, and then you don't want to call the obvious ones right in front of you. So that's it. Alpie got it. “I fouled out a couple times on that drive and on the layup and they don't want to call it, and I told him, 'Get some damn glasses, open your eyes.'”
Udoka said he did not try to show his players that he would stand up for them. He just wanted to tell Goble how he felt.
“Honestly, it wasn’t even about that,” Udoka said. “Alpie has one [tech]but take out your sensitivity and emotions and call the game right. It's obvious, right in front of you. John Goble, whoever it was, sees it, doesn't name it. I informed him about it.
Here's the piece that threw him off:
This season is the has fined Missile Guard Fred VanVleet $50,000 for “confronting and using profanities” toward officers, fined Kings coach Mike Brown $35,000 “for aggressively pursuing a game official during live play” and fined Milwaukee Bucks coach Doc Rivers received $25,000 “for public criticism of officiating.”
Before Tuesday's NBA Cup game against Sacramento, Houston had won 10 of 12 games. Had the Rockets won, they would have been the only team in the Western Conference to remain undefeated in group play. Houston is still in the quarterfinals.
In the second quarterthe kings De'Aaron Fox and the rockets Dillon Brooks And Jabari Smith Jr. picked up all technical fouls. Brooks played only 24 minutes due to foul trouble and was fouled with more than four minutes to play.
