Tyronn Lue might’ve thought his criticism of the referees was warranted after the Clippers’ game Wednesday, but it’ll cost him $35,000.
The head coach earned a fine from the NBA on Friday for “questioning the integrity of officials,” the league announced.
After the Clippers’ 130-125 win against the Warriors, a video from outside the visiting locker room at Chase Center captured a frustrated Lue shouting, “Where the refs at now? Cheating. That’s all they be doing.”
Everything that led to that point started early in the fourth quarter and ended when Lue picked up his second technical foul, prompting the automatic ejection.
Tyronn Lue was fined for his comments outside the locker room following the Clippers’ game Wednesday. Getty ImagesThe first technical foul occurred less than two minutes into the frame, when Draymond Green fouled the Clippers’ Mason Plumlee and Lue ended up arguing with an official.
Then, everything escalated less than a minute later when Golden State’s Brandin Podziemski grabbed a rebound and was knocked to the ground by Plumlee, who was whistled for a foul eventually labeled a flagrant 1.
And during that time, as Jonathan Kuminga was also issued a technical foul, Lue earned an ejection, and despite not talking with reporters postgame, the video where he criticized the referees contained enough evidence needed to draw the fine.
He high-fived players and coaches outside the tunnel away as they walked off the court following their victory, where the Clippers erased the nine-point deficit they faced at the time of Lue’s ejection.
Lue became the second member of the Clippers organization to get fined this week, as P.J. Tucker was docked $75,000 for publicly “expressing a desire to be traded to another team.”
“I want to be somewhere where I’m needed, wanted and can do it all,” Tucker, who arrived in Los Angeles as part of the James Harden deal, told Marc Spears ahead of the Feb. 8 deadline. “I don’t know what’s going to happen but I have my fingers crossed and I’m hoping to go somewhere else whether I get bought out and choose where I go or where I can play.”
The Clippers’ win against the Warriors — where James Harden scored 26 points, Paul George added 24 and Norman Powell contributed 21 off the bench — extended their tear ahead of the All-Star break and gave them 25 wins across their past 32 games, emerging as a Western Conference contender and holding the No. 3 seed entering the mid-season pause.
Los Angeles will play back-to-back road games against the Thunder and Grizzlies — on Thursday and Friday, respectively — after the All-Star break ends.
