After the first quarter of the first round between the Cleveland Cavaliers and Detroit Pistons, Stan Van Gundy went on a mini-rant in his interview with ESPN’s Lisa Salters.
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On a pair of plays, LeBron James drove inside the paint and seemed to dislodge his defenders. He wasn’t called for the fouls while the Pistons were. Van Gundy expressed his anger in the interview after the first quarter.
Stan Van Gundy already taking shots during game 1! #CavsNation #Cavs #Pistons #NBA pic.twitter.com/3hZfoiHYpG
— Cavs Nation TV (@CavsNationTV) April 17, 2016
After the game, Van Gundy went back and retracted his statement, saying that the game eventually evened out. What he really implied is that his team got a lot of calls to go their way after the non-calls on LeBron.
Nick Friedell of ESPN reports on Van Gundy’s postgame comments.
“Look, I thought it evened out really well,” Van Gundy said. “But early on, I thought there were two pretty obvious offensive fouls down there on him. But it’s two calls in an entire game after that. Look, the refereeing had nothing to do with tonight. They did a good job. It went both ways. I thought they did a really good job. It was decided by the players on the floor, as it should be.”
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Either way, the NBA doesn’t take lightly to a player or coach criticizing their referees, so they’ll likely take some action. Game 2 is Wednesday night back at the Q.
