Wall has some choice words about officials
Washington star critical of technical foul, lack of calls in loss to Utah
SALT LAKE CITY — Late Friday night, John Wall needed to vent. The Washington Wizards had just lost a physical game to the Utah Jazz, 95-88, in which Wall received a technical foul for making contact with center Rudy Gobert’s groin area while working through a screen. The technical foul, deemed a “hostile act” by the officiating crew, pushes Wall’s regular-season total to 15 and just one away from an automatic one-game suspension. Other than his punishment, Wall seethed at the freethrow disparity between the two teams. And so when reporters walked into the visitors’ locker room at Vivint Smart Home Arena, Wall welcomed the horde with a smile.
“Go ahead. Start the show,” Wall teased.
Then for nearly four minutes, Wall, unplugged and unapologetic, shared his brutally honest opinion on the officiating by the crew of John Goble, Mark Lindsay and Kevin Cutler.
“For one, I haven’t been saying nothing to the refs lately because I know what situation I’ve been in but the way they’ve been officiating today doesn’t make no sense,” Wall said. “To shoot 31 free throws to 16. We’re an aggressive team that attacks the basket, that don’t make no sense.”
Wall then pointed to his right forearm as evidence of a lack of calls for the Wizards.
“I had to get this bandaged up because I’m bleeding and the ref told me, ‘That’s not a foul,’ ” Wall said. “It’s getting out of hand. If you want us to compete at a high level like we’ve been doing – we didn’t lose this game. The refs made us lose this game. We fought hard, we gave ourselves a chance but you don’t shoot no 31 free throws to 16 the way we attack the basket as a team.”
Also, Wall repeated an earlier claim from a Feb. 26 matchup against the Jazz that lesser players receive more calls than he does. In particular, Wall took exception to how Utah’s backup point guard Shelvin Mack drew a foul with 33 seconds remaining in the tight game.
“I’ll give you a prime example. Look at the last play. Shelvin Mack drove and just threw the ball to somebody. That’s a foul? It’s plenty of times guys jump straight up and I never get that call,” Wall said. “It doesn’t make no sense. Certain guys are getting calls that don’t deserve it and it’s the second time me saying this. Fans can say I’m being rude or being disrespectful. I’m not. I’m just being bold with what I feel like our team should be getting credit for because we’re an aggressive team.”
Wall’s thoughts were echoed by teammates.
“The biggest thing is just realizing that we’re not going to get any calls and we haven’t gotten calls,” Bradley Beal said, when asked about lessons the team can take from the physical, slow-paced game. “So we need to just play. The playoffs will be super physical and I think that’s definitely something we can take out of it.”
Markieff Morris, who spent several moments at the end of the game on the floor after injuring his right ankle, refused to call the game “physical.”
“It wasn’t that physical, if you ask me,” Morris said. “These guys are not physical. This is like flag football on this side, compared to tackle on the East Coast. Every little foul on that side they get but on our side we’re being too physical, I guess.”
The Wizards expressed their most dismay for a third-quarter play that led to Wall’s technical foul. Although Wall was not originally called for a personal foul, the officials only decided to review the play after Gobert appeared to be in pain and held his groin. After several minutes of review, the lead official Goble assessed Wall with a technical foul.
“They said it was a ‘hostile act,’ ” coach Scott Brooks told reporters later, as he shook his head in disbelief. “I’ve been around a lot of fights back when I played. Come on. ‘Hostile act?’ Really? It’s ridiculous.”
However the technical foul appears to contradict the NBA rule book. According to Section V on Conduct: “A technical foul cannot be assessed for physical contact when the ball is alive.” The exception is for “fighting fouls” and or “taunting with physical contact,” however neither happened during the questionable play that involved Wall and Gobert.