Donovan Mitchell breaks his silence on how NBA players’ feel about referees’ ‘soft’ decisions following his ejection in overtime last night.
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The Utah Jazz and Philadelphia 76ers recently faced off in a blockbuster matchup that was anticipated by many. And as the NBA community expected, the game was an incredibly close one, even going into overtime. But despite the game being as good as it was, the main talking point here was the ejection of Donovan Mitchell.
The player was having an influential night, and scored 33 points to keep his team in the game. All seemed to be going well for the Jazz, until the final minute of overtime, when a foul was awarded to Joel Embiid. The decision seemed to be the correct one by the officials here, but there was room for disagreement. And Donovan Mitchell most definitely disagreed.
What followed was the player letting his emotions getting the best of him and almost skipping away in frustration. This was something the officials seemed to have taken offense to, since the player was ejected soon after.
The decision was a controversial one to say the least. And understandably, Mitchell had a very strong reaction to it during his interview after the game.
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“It’s really getting out of hand”: Donovan Mitchell airs his frustrations about his ejection
As many would expect, Donovan Mitchell wasn’t the happiest person after this game. When asked about his thoughts on the officials’ decision to eject him, this is what Mitchell had to say.
“It’s tough to go out there, see how we fight and compete, to have a game like that taken from us. Never ever wanted to blame the refs…but this is getting out of hand.”
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Speaking completely candidly on the topic, Donovan Mitchell continued:
“I’m sick of it, we all are…They need to do something about this.”
Mitchell also went on to point out that this has been a consistent problem for the last few weeks. Officials have been far too trigger-happy with technical for the weirdest of things. JJ Reddick even got a technical for giving the ball back to the official with a little bit of spin on it.
Perhaps it’s time that the league finally listened to its players, and actually hold the officials more accountable for these actions. But while that sounds good right now, only time will tell what changes will be made in the future.
