Sacramento Kings coach Mike Brown used a laptop to highlight multiple calls that he found frustrating after his team lost an overtime thriller, 143-142, to the Milwaukee Bucks on Sunday night.
Brown was ejected early in the fourth quarter after storming on the court and screaming at referee Intae Hwang. He had to be restrained by Sacramento players and directed off the court.
Brown said during his postgame news conference that the officials were inconsistent with their calls on Sunday night.
“The referees are human, and they’re going to make mistakes, but you just hope that there’s some sort of consistency and there’s some sort of communication between the refs,” Brown said. “The refs tonight, they were great, they communicated with me all night. But in terms of consistency, you guys saw it right here. In my opinion, the consistency wasn’t here tonight.”
Brown used the laptop to point to a play in the third quarter where Bucks star Damian Lillard drew three free throws on a shooting foul behind the 3-point line. He then compared that to what he termed as a no-call in the fourth quarter where a Bucks defender appeared to hook Kings star De’Aaron Fox on a drive. He also talked about the inconsistency with which the verticality rule is interpreted.
The Bucks shot 14 more free throws than the Kings in the first half and ended the game with 12 more attempts.
The Kings stormed back from a 12-point deficit in the fourth quarter to force overtime, but Lillard hit a buzzer-beating 3-pointer from around 30 feet to give Milwaukee the win.
“We had a chance to win the game and we didn’t get it done,” Brown said. “But I’m telling you, man, to go through [the inconsistency in calls], it’s tough, man. It’s tough to go through that.”
The Associated Press contributed to this story.