HOUSTON – Flying in from a long road trip, the Houston Rockets are back at home as they prepare for Wednesday's game against the Oklahoma City Thunder. During their practice on Monday, forward Dillon Brooks and coach Ime Udoka spoke about the recent matchup against the Los Angeles Lakers, mainly citing the abysmal officiating performance.
Although it was a disappointing game on a performance level, many of the officials blew the whistle a bit more against the Rockets compared to the Lakers. Twenty-three foul calls were on the Rockets compared to 17 towards the Lakers. Also, Los Angeles were granted nine more free throw attempts.
It wasn't just personal fouls that were called. Six total technical fouls were issued during the game. Especially the infamous moment, when coach Ime Udoka received his second technical foul after a verbal exchange with LeBron James, thereby ejecting him from the game. Following Rockets practice, Brooks expressed deep opinions about the matter.
“I tried to push LeBron away from it. The refs, they let it get outta hand,” Brooks said. “Terrible group out there that was reffing, they lost control of the game. …That’s what you get from inconsistent refs is a whole bunch of nonsense.”
In 17 games, Brooks is averaging 13.2 points with 3.4 rebounds, shooting 47% from the field and 44.1% from three, which are career-highs. Over his last 10 games however, Brooks has committed 4.7 fouls per game and was whistled four times during the recent Lakers game in which he scored 10 points on 4-of-9 shooting with a -14 plus/minus.
Brooks' History With Officials
Since his controversial defensive play on Golden State Warriors guard Gary Payton II two seasons ago in a Memphis Grizzlies uniform, Brooks is often looked as the villain on the court. While he embraces the name, it's rare that officials blow a whistle in his favor. Instead, Brooks is more than often called for fouls against him.
“In this basketball game there should be no grudges held, there should be no emotions towards the game,” Brooks said. “It’s just reffing the game or playing the game the way it’s supposed to be played.”
In addition to this, nearly every time he had the ball in his hands at the Crypto.com arena Saturday night, loud boos ensued from the Laker fans. This is in part from his comments as well as the lackluster performance defending LeBron in last years playoffs.
It's More Than Just Brooks
There's no concrete explanation to this, but Houston has been dealt with officiating imbalance all season, with 3.3 more fouls per game compared to drawing fouls, the second largest margin in the NBA. In 13 of 17 games played, Houston has had more fouls called against them. Along with Brooks, Udoka sounded off on this as well, citing his disgust of poor officiating against his team.
“We do want to be aggressive on defense, but have to tow the line of understanding how they're [the refs] calling the game,” Udoka said. “It’s been discrepancies at times definitely in free throws but even fouls. I think its 12-3 in one point in the second quarter. You know, we're attacking the basket too. There's some of that too it, probably some of my frustration came in on how we were getting bullied a little bit.”
A first look into this happened in the second regular season game against the San Antonio Spurs. Towards the final minutes, Rockets were leading the game impressively, displaying their grit to defend one of the most highly touted prospects in Victor Wembanyama. While they did surrender the lead, some of the calls that went against the Rockets allowed San Antonio to claw back to tie the game at the free throw line. This was topped with Rockets also committed nine more fouls in this game.
It also happened against the Lakers in the nail-biting 104-105 loss on November 19th. Houston committed a whopping 25 total personal fouls, while the Lakers were whistled just 13 times.
Make Adjustments Per Official
Stopping fouls alone isn't the solution. Udoka emphasizes the importance of adapting to each game's officiating style. In today's NBA, whistle standards vary, requiring teams to make real-time adjustments. If this doesn't work, there might be a brewing conspiracy on their hands.
Let's see how they'll handle defending well against the dangerous Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday.
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