"F*cking terrible": VanVleet rips NBA refs after Raptors' loss
Toronto Raptors point guard Fred VanVleet was not holding back his feelings on NBA referees on Wednesday night.
After Toronto’s 108-100 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers on the road, VanVleet called out a particular ref for his decision-making in the contest, with the expectation that he’d have to pay for his comments.
“I don’t mind, I’ll take a fine. I don’t really care. I thought Ben Taylor was f***ing terrible tonight. On most nights, out of the 3, there’s 1 or 2 that f*** the game up.”
Fred VanVleet on tonight’s officials, and NBA officiating: pic.twitter.com/Plp8DaqNp5
— Josh Lewenberg (@JLew1050) March 9, 2023
“I don’t mind, I’ll take a fine. I thought Ben Taylor was f***ing terrible tonight,” VanVleet told the media in his post-game press conference. “I think that most nights, you know out of the three, there’s one or two that just f*** the game up. It’s been like that a couple of games in a row.”
VanVleet was talking about Monday night’s 118-113 loss in Denver against the Western Conference-leading Nuggets, where Raptors sophomore Scottie Barnes was ejected in the waning moments of the game due to “verbiage that which directly questioned the integrity of the crew,” according to the NBA’s pool report with referee Scott Foster.
“Denver was tough, obviously. You come out tonight, competing pretty hard and I get a bulls**t tech that changes the whole dynamic of the game, changed the whole flow of the game,” VanVleet added. “And you know, most of the refs are trying hard, I like a lot of the refs they’re trying hard, they’re pretty fair, and communicate well. And then you got the other ones who just want to be dicks and just kind f**ks the game up.”
VanVleet was awarded a technical foul by Taylor with 7:02 left in the third quarter and the Raptors trailing 64-57, with Paul George hitting the subsequent free throw.
“No one’s coming to see that s***. They come to see the players,” VanVleet continued. “I think we’re losing a little bit of the fabric of what the NBA is and was and 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 and it’s never a good place to be. That’s not why we lost tonight, we got outplayed, but it definitely makes it tougher to overcome.”
I looked it up.
This season, Ben Taylor has officiated in 6 games that Fred VanVleet has played in. VanVleet has received a tech in 4 of those games, including 2 on Nov. 30th.
Taylor has directly called him for a tech in 3 of the 6 games. https://t.co/FVMNApWFl8
— Keerthika Uthayakumar (@keerthikau) March 9, 2023
Toronto remains in Los Angeles, where they take on the Lakers on Friday night, with tipoff set for 10:30 pm ET.
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