Cavaliers Head Coach J.B. Bickerstaff Fined For Officiating Comments
Without their two big men in Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley, the Cleveland Cavaliers were no match for Joel Embiid and the Philadelphia 76ers.
The Sixers as a team took 42 free-throws in the game, Embiid going to the line 20 times on his own, which prompted Cavaliers’ head coach J.B. Bickerstaff to talk about the officiating in his postgame press conference.
“That game was taken from us,” Bickerstaff said. “We deserved to win it.”
Heading into the fourth quarter, the Cavaliers trailed by nine points and they ended up taking the lead at one point before the 76ers iced the game at the free-throw line.
Joel Embiid and James Harden combined for 65 points on Sunday night for the 76ers, 28 of which came from the free-throw line.
“The one thing you can't defend is the free-throw line, and that's absurd… Our guys deserved way better than they got tonight. They're great players, and they understand how to play through the rules. They know how to manipulate the rules. This is no knock or disrespect to those guys. But the game has to be consistent on both ends of the floor. We were searching for that consistency, and we never found it.”
Monday evening, the NBA announced that Cavaliers head coach J.B. Bickerstaff had been fined $15,000 for his public criticism of the officiating in his postgame comments.
The Cavaliers have three games remaining in the regular season and they currently sit 1.5 games ahead of the Atlanta Hawks for the 7-seed in the Eastern Conference.
Assuming the Chicago Bulls and/or Toronto Raptors do not lose their remaining four games, Cleveland will have to fight for their playoff spot via the Eastern Conference Play-In Tournament.
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