Clippers’ Doc Rivers renews his call for a coaches’ challenge provision on late-game calls by refs
Clippers Coach Doc Rivers paces the sideline during the loss to the Nuggets on Wednesday at Staples Center.
Another admission by the NBA that officials had erred on a key late-game call that went against the Clippers has left Coach Doc Rivers frustrated yet again.
Rivers suggested once more Friday that the NBA should adopt a rule that would allow coaches to challenge officials’ calls late in games — similar to what NFL coaches do when they throw a “challenge flag” to dispute a call.
Rivers said the NBA’s competition committee has discussed the possibility of using a challenge flag.
“I have been pushing for a flag for a year now,” said Rivers, who is on the competition committee. “We should have a challenge flag. That’s the third time this year now that [the NBA] has come back and said that it was a bad call [against the Clippers]. It didn’t do anything for us. It really doesn’t.”
Rivers spoke a day after the league said an offensive foul called on the Clippers’ Jeff Green with 30.4 seconds to play Wednesday in an 87-81 loss to Denver instead should have been ruled a foul by the Nuggets’ Danilo Gallinari. The charging call negated a basket by Green, who also was denied a free-throw attempt that could have resulted in a three-point play that would have pulled the Clippers to within 85-84.
In its last-two-minute report on officiating Thursday, the NBA said Gallinari “does not establish a legal guarding position prior to the contact with Green.”
“It’s a tough one to me because it’s not like the officials are trying to make a mistake. But they do at the end of games,” Rivers said. “We’ve had two [previous] clearly game-defining calls at the end of the game and then this one [against Denver]. That’s a three-point play, which would have put us down one. . . . That was a big call. Those are tough calls. We want to get it right at the end of the day, and the officials want to get it right.”
Rivers mentioned a one-point loss to Oklahoma City on Dec. 21, when a disputed call that went against the Clippers late in the game was deemed incorrect by the league the next day.
“So stuff like that matters,” Rivers said. “And we as a league, we just want to get it right and everyone does, including the officials.”
Etc.
Rivers said Austin Rivers, his son and backup point guard who is out with a broken left hand, could return to play “in the next seven days.”
Twitter: @BA_Turner
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