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UPDATE: The NBA has fined Van Gundy $15,000 for his comments, per Yahoo Sports.
The NBA also fined Pistons coach Stan Van Gundy $15,000 for public criticism of officiating after Saturday night's loss in Portland.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) March 18, 2018
The Portland Trail Blazers extended their winning streak to 12 games with a 100-87 win over the Detroit Pistons Saturday. Both offenses struggled for most of the night, but Portland was able to pull out the victory thanks in large part to an extraordinary defensive effort.
Pistons head coach Stan Van Gundy had his opinions about the game, saying he thought that extraordinary defense was helped in large part by officiating (via ESPN):
“They held and grabbed on every play and they got away with fouls all over the place. We got absolutely screwed all night,” Van Gundy said. “Luke Kennard makes a back cut to the basket on an out-of-bounds play, gets knocked down, they end up with two points on the other end. Blake Griffin has two straight drives in the fourth that he gets hammered on. He gets screwed twice.”
Van Gundy also tossed in a backhanded compliment to the Blazers’ defense:
“A big part of [the Blazers’] defense -- they play very hard, I don’t mean to take anything away from them -- but when you can get away with playing like that and get screwed that badly by the officials, your defense is going to be pretty good,” Van Gundy said.
And he was not done there:
“Yeah, ‘If I saw it, I would have called it.’ Well you know what? Your damn job is to see it. ... Why the hell do we have you out there?”
Detroit finished the game with a 20-18 advantage in free throw attempts and was also whistled for one less foul than the Blazers were.
The Pistons have now lost eight of their last 10 games, dropping them 6.5 games back of the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.