JB Bickerstaff accuses referee of impartiality
John Goble’s ears were undoubtedly ringing (no pun intended) after the Dallas-Detroit game he just refereed. Although his name was never mentioned at the press conference, JB Bickerstaff clearly pointed to his behavior.
How? Speaking of two sequences where Goble made two decisions: ejecting Auzar Thompson and then giving the Pistons coach a technical foul. More seriously, the technician questions the referee’s impartiality.
“Night after night, this is how it goes between us”John Goble reportedly told JB Bickerstaff. “This makes me think that the referee is not objective”, judge the coach of Detroit. “He gave me a technical foul at halftime even though I didn’t say anything. I grabbed Cade Cunningham to get him off the field and he called me a technical. My role is to keep the players away from the referees.”
This judge also acquitted Ausar Thompson, guilty of it “approached aggressively” and a “contact with judge” as the Pistons player was not far from a skirmish with John Goble. However, JB Bickerstaff didn’t see the same thing.
“If we look at this action where he shuts down Thompson, the ref is moving towards him, isn’t he?tries to justify the coach. “That’s when minimal contact happens, when he walks up to him and initiates contact.”
A thinly veiled charge that is unlikely to escape punishment
The final complaints were directed at the referee, still unspecified: missing a timeout in the final seconds of overtime, with Jalen Duren grabbing two offensive rebounds and Detroit trailing by two points. JB Bickerstaff called a timeout but “The same judge, next to me, does not give it to me”.
This rage against John Goble, certainly veiled but well expressed, should earn him an NBA fine. He just took the name Udoka $25.00 fine because he only commented negatively on the performance of the men in gray and when the NBA partially agreed with Houston. JB Bickerstaff goes further by questioning the referee’s integrity…
However, the latter did not want to put two other colleagues of his evening victim in the same bag, especially since Jason Kidd and the Mavericks sometimes contested the whistles.
“I want to be very clear: this match was not played with the referees. This match was close, with two very competitive teams, but we have to deal with the issue of objectivity in terms of what happened on the floor. We have a person who wanted the referees to play the match, when that should not be the case. Anyone who comes in and says it’s going to be like this, ‘night for the night’, clearly we care about our point of view. All we ask for is fairness.
2025-12-19 08:43:00
