NBA fines Rockets’ Dillon Brooks, Ime Udoka over officiating talk

Houston Rockets forward Dillon Brooks has been fined $35,000 for directing inappropriate language toward a game official and publicly criticizing the officiating, and Rockets head coach Ime Udoka has been fined $25,000 for directing inappropriate language toward a game official, it was announced today by Joe Dumars, executive vice president, head of basketball operations.

The incident, for which Brooks and Udoka were both assessed technical fouls and ejected, occurred with 0:38 remaining in the fourth quarter of the Rockets’ 128-119 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks on Dec. 17 at Fiserv Forum.

(It was) about the call. I’m sick of refs being right in front of the play and not making calls, and then compiling it with a bailout call like a flop. I ran full speed to get the ball after I made a great play on trying to get a steal. Two hands are on me. After that, I’m throwing the ball and trying to protect myself and not falling into whatever that was, into the fans or the bottom of the floor.

I’m trying to protect myself and then on top that, he wants to call a flop with a minute left. That doesn’t make sense. Make calls during the game while the game is going on, but not trying to get something off. It’s unacceptable for me. That ref shouldn’t even be reffing our games, for real.

It was a blatant missed push out of bounds on that call, obviously. But the same ref (Suyash Mehta) is missing the same calls throughout the game, calling it very quickly or tight on other plays. Yeah, it was that specific play, but it was a ton of missed calls throughout.