The Inside Guys interview former NBA referee to discuss Lakers' comments on officiating 👀

0:00 Six games into the postseason, OKC hasn't lost a game,

0:04 winning by an average about 17 a game.

0:06 They used runs of 25 to 7 in the third quarter,

0:09 17 to 5 in the fourth to break open what had been a tight game.

0:13 Now, in dissecting the loss, Lakers head coach JJ Redick said,

0:17 quote, "We didn't lose because of the refs.

0:19 That's never the case." Unquote.

0:22 But, he did have some thoughts on how that game was called.

0:26 I sarcastically said the other day they

0:28 were the most disruptive team without fouling.

0:30 I mean, they they have a few guys that foul

0:32 on every possession and and all the good defenses do.

0:34 They're hard enough to play.

0:36 They're hard enough to play.

0:36 You got to be able to just call it if they foul.

0:39 And they do foul.

0:40 LeBron has the worst whistle of any star player I've ever seen.

0:42 The smaller guys, because they can be theatric,

0:45 they typically draw more fouls and and the bigger players that are,

0:49 you know, built like LeBron, it's hard for them.

0:51 He gets fouled a lot.

0:52 That doesn't happen to me.

0:53 Get guy gets hit on the head more than any

0:55 player I've seen on drives and it rarely gets called.

0:57 Dude, emotion's part of basketball.

0:59 And I think some of the reason they they're, you know,

1:02 officiated the way they are is cuz they don't show emotion.

1:04 And that's a credit to them.

1:05 I mean, they they really taken the emotion out of the game.

1:07 They're super tight-knit.

1:09 They don't complain to the officials and they,

1:11 you know, maybe they're the beneficiaries of that.

1:13 I don't know.

1:15 And joining us now is the NBA senior

1:17 VP of referee training and development, Monty McCutchen.

1:21 Monty, thanks a lot for taking some time with us tonight.

1:23 We appreciate you.

1:25 It's good to be here, Ernie.

1:27 Hey, look, for as long as there's been basketball,

1:31 uh there has been talk about officiating from fans,

1:33 from players, from coaches, you name it.

1:35 Um so, we're used to that.

1:38 Uh but, when you hear like Austin Reaves say of John

1:40 Goble he's disrespecting me or you hear Chris Finch say,

1:44 um of Tony Brothers he's unprofessional, how does that rest with you?

1:51 Well, most certainly we want professionalism.

1:52 We want our our group to provide professionalism.

1:56 This is the best time of the year

1:57 and there's a lot of passion, a lot of emotion,

2:00 a lot of commitment to all the way back into September

2:02 and October when training camp started and this is the culmination of that.

2:06 So, we expect some conflict of course.

2:09 Um strength is necessary in officials most certainly because you want

2:13 a strong official on the road in a playoff game that can,

2:16 you know, exclude out all the the outside noise

2:19 to get to the standards of what we want applied.

2:23 Do we make mistakes sometimes as officials in in over exhibiting that strength?

2:27 Yeah, I think we can own that part of it.

2:30 Um most certainly referees are not perfect at this time of the year and part

2:33 of of any championship run is overcoming

2:37 some of of our imperfections as referees.

2:40 I do think that there's a difference sometimes in our mistakes

2:44 and then in some instances what some occurrences happen is is that rules

2:50 are really nuanced and as experts of rules you have to apply

2:53 some things that seem obvious to the to the world that actually are

2:57 adjudicated properly but not well understood and our job in management

3:03 of the referees is to hold

3:04 the referees accountable to unprofessional behavior and still

3:08 allow them the strength it takes to do the work and stand

3:11 up to all the the passion that our our league affords itself.

3:15 Appreciate is SGA one of those guys cuz he has a move move

3:19 that the public think is a push off but maybe it's not a push off,

3:22 maybe it is is he one of those guys that's very difficult to officiate.

3:27 Well, we we would start that list with you, I think Shaq.

3:31 Not that I ever made any mistakes with you.

3:33 I could probably fill books up with my mistakes.

3:36 I do think Shay and other players that are the game slows

3:40 down for our best players and and all of you that that work

3:44 there were some of our best players in the history

3:46 of our league and you know that the game slows down for you.

3:50 And as the game slows down,

3:52 it allows you to push the envelope on the demarcation

3:55 lines of legal and illegal and exposing illegal.

3:59 And of course, there's always going to be some embellishment.

4:01 It's worth noting that we use the word flop very generally.

4:06 Most certainly in general talk, we use flop.

4:09 But at the league office and for our stakeholders,

4:11 we've separated flopping as a violation from embellishment.

4:16 Now, we can sit until, you know,

4:19 the late hours of the night discussing whether one is a flop,

4:22 secondary, theatrical, exaggerated movements is what we call a flop,

4:27 or merely embellishment.

4:29 And we've tried to give the league a a distinction

4:32 between that, but reasonable people

4:34 could disagree between embellishment and flopping, and that's part of the work.

4:38 I do think that certain players skirt that line and make it difficult

4:43 and hard on referees to to live between the demarcation line of legal,

4:48 flopping, or embellishment.

4:50 And most certainly, we do our best from night to night to uphold standards,

4:54 and we fail at that sometimes as referees, most certainly.

4:58 Well, first of all, Monty, you've got to shorten your damn answer.

5:00 We only got a half an hour show, first and foremost.

5:05 Hey, I don't get much chance to spread the word, Chuck.

5:08 I I got to maximize it.

5:10 Hey, so I I think that you guys do a great job.

5:13 Obviously, you said it,

5:14 you're going to miss some calls because obviously in real time,

5:17 it's very difficult.

5:18 How much and to a certain degree, what is really unfair to the referees,

5:23 we and the people at home get to look at the replay in slow motion five times,

5:30 and then we're like,

5:30 "They missed a call." I I think that's fundamentally unfair,

5:34 to be honest with you.

5:35 How much does that factor into to to y'all's opinion of of some

5:39 of the calls and some of the stuff going on in these games now?

5:43 I think one of the things that's really important to us, Chuck,

5:45 is to make sure that we're following the training that we apply.

5:49 And some plays are really, really difficult.

5:51 Also, we make fundamental mistakes in what we know works.

5:54 And if we fail at the training, we get very, you know,

5:57 strong with our officiating staff about how

6:00 to get better because we know these things work.

6:03 I do think it's important, you know,

6:04 Coach K has this great line where two is better than one when two act as one.

6:10 Uh I've appropriated that for our staff as three

6:12 is better than one when they act as one.

6:15 And so we break the game down into, you know,

6:18 primary and secondary areas of coverage.

6:20 And when we do a well a good job of handing those coverages off,

6:25 we're better because we we see more of less of the game.

6:28 If we try to ball watch like we do when we're,

6:31 you know, watching a game, then we're not as good.

6:34 Uh most certainly we want to hold our referees accountable.

6:37 There are a lot of uh of There's a lot

6:39 of effort that goes into to the passion of a season,

6:43 and we have to live up to the charge of that.

6:45 Um but there are plays that are very difficult to see in real time.

6:48 There's no doubt about that.

6:50 Well, I do like that quote uh that quote you just said, Monty.

6:53 Uh but Dean Smith had one, one is better than two if it's from Carolina.

6:57 Um I I will I I will say this, you know,

7:00 the most interesting thing I saw was at the end of the game when

7:06 Austin River Austin Reaves had an opportunity

7:10 to talk for an extended period of time.

7:13 Typically, you always see the referees they bolt to the end

7:17 of the to the to the uh dressing room.

7:19 They don't give players at the end of the game.

7:22 Was that like a little bit unprecedented to have

7:24 that much time to talk to a referee after the game?

7:28 We we teach our officials, Kenny, to go to center court so that we're,

7:31 you know, not leaving the same bombs

7:33 at the same time where emotions can run high.

7:36 Um most certainly, um we we want interactions to be professional there.

7:41 I I do think that that that had a look to it, obviously.

7:45 Um but there wasn't a ton of of profanity or anything like that.

7:49 It had a a look of it was out of the ordinary.

7:52 There's no doubt about that.

7:54 But Austin was in control.

7:55 John did a good job of letting him hear his piece.

7:59 You know, there were a couple of plays

8:00 in that game that lived on the nuance of our rule.

8:03 There was a continuation play that everyone was quite upset about,

8:06 but that we actually got right.

8:08 Um shots that are taken inside the lower defensive box,

8:11 it's at the gather that continuation takes place.

8:14 If the shot is going to be outside the lower defensive box,

8:18 then it's the upward shooting motion.

8:20 And on that play, we got it right,

8:22 but it didn't have the feel of getting it right

8:25 because upward shooting motion didn't start until after the bump,

8:29 even though the gather had taken place.

8:32 And so there's the bump, there's upward shooting motion as you see.

8:36 And so I can understand in the passion

8:38 of the moment that kind of disagreement from from a team.

8:41 That's a nuanced part of our rule.

8:44 And so if there is is meaningful conversation afterwards,

8:48 and and it's not out of control, which that one was not,

8:51 we want to make sure that on our end we're not defensive,

8:54 that we're willing to listen, and then we go on and let people,

8:58 you know, work through the disappointment

9:00 of whatever took place during the game.

9:02 narrative is uh Look, games are called differently in the postseason

9:07 than they are in the regular season.

9:08 Are they?

9:10 I think most certainly the games are played differently.

9:12 You know, obviously the expertise you have there on the show

9:16 knows that the 82-game schedule is a really long schedule.

9:20 And I don't know that any of us

9:21 would survive playoff basketball over 82 games, you know.

9:26 And so I do think that that there's an intensity increase.

9:29 Uh we don't change our standards.

9:31 Do I think that there's more intensity?

9:34 Do I think that there's more banging where no one um

9:37 gains an advantage in the post or you know along Yes,

9:41 I think that there's no doubt that the game feels and and presents differently.

9:45 We don't make an an adjustment to say, oh, it's playoff basketball.

9:49 Now don't call this.

9:50 Now don't call this.

9:52 We're trying to find the balance between what good competitive play looks like

9:56 when players are not placed at unfair

9:59 disadvantages through the actions of an opponent.

10:02 And I I think that from one standpoint,

10:04 you can see that we call our we blow our whistle more.

10:07 Think we average somewhere around 39,000 in the regular season.

10:10 We're at 44 right now.

10:11 So we do put more air in the whistle at this time of the year.

10:15 Now whether that's enough based on all the competition and and passion,

10:18 that's open to debate as as y'all do so well.

10:22 Money McCutchen, thank you so much.

10:24 Really appreciate the time today.

10:25 Money, you ever heard of Cliff Notes?

10:29 NO, I WAS ASKING FOR MONEY.

10:31 Stay informative, Money.

10:32 Money, you know what I'm saying, man.

10:34 You do You do something.

10:35 He's He's one to be talking about long answers.

10:38 That's We call him the rambling wreck.

10:41 Georgia Tech.

10:42 It's good to see everyone, man.

10:43 Y'all have a good night.

10:45 Great to see you, too.

10:46 Money McCutchen joining us.

10:47 Yeah.

10:48 Uh when we come back, you'll hear from OKC's AJ Mitchell,

10:53 but Chuck preaching short in the words.

10:55 Stop it, Dylan.