Kings head coach Mike Brown has been fined to the tune of $35K for “aggressively pursuing a game official during live play,” the NBA announced today in a press release (Twitter link).
The incident took place in the second quarter of Sacramento’s loss to Brooklyn on Sunday (Twitter video link).
Brown was upset after no foul was called on Nets guard Ben Simmons, who contested a fast-break layup attempt by Colby Jones and sent the Kings guard to the floor (video link via NBA.com). The miss, which was ruled a clean block by Simmons despite apparent contact, led to a Brooklyn three-pointer on the other end of the court.
Brown, who followed referee Scott Twardoski up the court after the Nets’ make, berating him for the non-call, was charged with a technical foul for his outburst.
This is hardly a first-time offense for Brown. The Kings’ head coach was also fined $25K by the NBA in December 2022 for “aggressively pursuing and directing profane language” toward a game official and was hit with a $50K fine in January 2024 for “aggressively pursuing” a referee and then criticizing the officiating in his post-game media session.
When are they going to fine refs for bias?
Oh no…
Let’s replace the refs with technology… The human eye is too slow for the NBA…
I see this from several different angles. It’s tough to navigate the video because it’s only 3 seconds LOL, thanks NBA.com, but from what I can see it was a good “non call.” It’s a scrub situation who hasn’t played much and he’s not going to get a marginal close call like that. He’s just not.
Simmons isn’t a superstar worthy of a favorable call but it looked clean enough to me to allow play to continue.
Then the other side of the coin, while Mike Brown pursued the ref, he stayed within his team bench area. He didn’t go out on the court, and he didn’t go past his area to the other team’s bench area.
So a technical foul should have been the end of it. I can see the fine in addition and no problem but he was probably looking for a “T” to back up his player and change the course and momentum of the game.
So it should have been a T, but no fine, and the block was clean enough for me. I’m not an expert but that’s my take.