The Los Angeles Lakers lost in heartbreaking fashion to the Denver Nuggets on Monday, and superstar LeBron James thinks the replay centre didn’t do his team any favours.
Post-game, after Jamal Murray’s incredible buzzer-beater sent the Lakers to a 2-0 series deficit, James had some pointed comments about the officiating.
The 39-year-old NBA legend specifically had an issue with an overturned foul call that saw a Nuggets foul on D’Angelo Russell disappear. Denver forward Michael Porter Jr. appeared to hit Russell across the face, but after going to the replay centre, the referees determined the contact was “marginal.”
James disagreed.
“I don’t understand what’s going on in the replay center, to be honest,” James said post-game per ESPN’s Dave McMenamin. “…D-Lo clearly gets hit in the face on a drive. What the (expletive) do we have a replay center for if it’s going to go (like that). It doesn’t make sense to me.”
It wasn’t the first officiating debate of the night. According to ESPN’s Tim Bontemps, the Philadelphia 76ers plan to file a grievance with the NBA about the officiating across the first two games of their series after another controversial end to Game 2 on Monday.
“Everybody on the floor was trying to call a timeout, myself included,” 76ers star Joel Embiid said in the locker room after the game, also visibly frustrated. “Nico (Batum), coach on the sideline, but they didn’t give it to us. But forget about the timeouts, there were a bunch of fouls. … That’s (expletive) unacceptable.”
James saw the Sixers-Knicks fiasco, and it added fuel to his fire.
“It makes no sense to me. It bothers me,” James said. “…That s— it like … And then I just saw what happened with the Sixers-Knicks game too. Like, what are we doing? … It’s (expletive) stupid.”
Russell, the centre of the controversial call, wasn’t necessarily as direct as LeBron. But it was clear he also wasn’t a fan.
“A few questionable calls that really dictated a lot of movements forward,” Russell said post-game. “So, it is what it is. We all saw it.”
Also taking his opinion to social media, Russell wrote on X, “That’s a foul we all saw it on national television.
James, Russell and the Lakers now head home and face the difficult task of coming back from 2-0 on the defending champs.
James may be heading back to L.A. with a fine as well.
