Paul George fined $25,000 for public criticism of officials after Game 4
By Josh Hill
The NBA, and all professional sports leagues, have a big no-no clause when it comes to whining about officiating and they come down hard on players who publicly call out referees for calls they don’t agree with. For Indiana Pacers forward Paul George, he really didn’t like much of anything he saw in Game 4 on Monday night and took to the podium after the game to complain about it.
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Needless to say, the NBA was not tickled and slapped George with a $25,000 fine to officially add insult to injury. Not only did George and the Pacers lose the game, but the loss is clearly ending up as being more costly for George than he thought.
Pacers forward Paul George has been fined $25,000 for public criticism of the officiating in the postgame presser after Game 4 loss to Heat.
— Marc J. Spears (@MarcJSpears) May 27, 2014
George wasn’t really all that great in Game 4 an neither were any of the primary members of the Pacers core. Lance Stephenson was horrible, David West didn’t do much of anything and aside from a few cool plays, George was useless down the stretch as well.
Paying out a $25,000 fine for George is small potatoes but the lasting cost of his words will be not the price he had to pay but the fact that he’s apparently obtusely unaware that the Pacers are outmatched in the series. Rather than correct things, George is content saying the Pacers out played the HEat on the stat sheet or didn’t have the refs in their pocket and Miami did.
All of that is cute, but in the meantime his team is down 3-1 and about to have plenty of extra time to complain about the intricacies of officiating.