Los Angeles Lakers head coach JJ Redick didn’t mince words following his team’s recent loss to the Clippers, a matchup where injuries and officiating combined to derail any chance of a comeback.
While Luka Doncic’s leg contusion and the absence of key rotation players certainly played a role in the 103-88 defeat, Redick shifted attention to a deeper issue: the inconsistency of the NBA’s officiating and challenge system.
“Overall, the consistency, it’s something I’m gonna talk with them about tomorrow,” Redick said speaking to Spectrum SportsNet. “The consistency needs to be addressed. That needs to be addressed, and it will be. I think any coach, any player, what we ask for is consistency. That’s not to single any official out or any crew out, it’s not about that. We need to know what it is night to night. We’ve had a number, and this is where I get frustrated a little bit and I keep asking the league to please reach out to me and respond to every time I do the coach’s feedback thing, I don’t get any response from the league, nobody ever reaches out to me.
“The way we do challenges and the definitions of challenges and X, Y or Z and why you can or can’t, it’s different with every different crew. We’re supposed to have the guy at the replay center, whoever is in charge that night, we’re supposed to have some level of consistency. And the definitions just get changed every single night.”
There was also a play where Redick tried to challenge on what looked like a proximate foul on a ball out of bounds, but was told that he could not challenge that aspect.
He wasn’t thrilled about it.
“Yeah. Josh (Tiven) came to me and said, I don’t want you to waste your challenge, but there’s a chance that it’s two separate plays,’ Redick said. “Which, again, I’ve seen this happen where somebody’s trying to box a guy out, gets fouled, somebody goes over the back and there’s a clear foul, ball gets deflected off the defensive team. I’ve seen that challenged, and I’ve seen that work. So it’s not two separate plays. The ball is part of the play, the ball got loose because of the charge, and then it was deflected. It’s not two separate plays. That’s an insane definition. Insane.”
