Los Angeles Lakers coach JJ Redick was not pleased with how their 131-125 victory over the Raptors was officiated. Although the Raptors committed more fouls than the Lakers, 26, Redick still believed several uncalled fouls ultimately affected the flow of the game.
Redick pointed to the Lakers’ 24 turnovers in the win and argued that many of them came from fouls that went uncalled.
“We scored 131 with 24 turnovers. You guys can see it. Some of those turnovers are because we’re legitimately getting fouled. It’s not like, ‘Was that a foul? Was that not a foul?’ You can’t.”
He said he raised the issue with a referee and described a defensive tactic he sees around the league.
“I told one of the referees this, because all these guys do, all the defenders now, is they pick you up, then they grab the arm you’re not dribbling with, and then they try to steal the ball from you. We saw it. Famously, Cason Wallace did it with TJ McConnell, and that’s just the NBA right now.”
Redick did say that the Lakers did enough to play through it, but he did acknowledge that some of the turnovers were their own doing.
“It’s really hard when you have teams like this that are just fouling on every possession. I thought we did enough to play through it, but a lot of those turnovers are just that. Then you can point to some decision-making, some passes, all that stuff. Those naturally happen within the flow of the game.”