Alvin Gentry: 'All we want is an equal opportunity to win the game'
NEW ORLEANS -- For the second consecutive game, the opposing coach facing off against the? Houston Rockets?finished the night with an epic rant against the officials. Following the? Pelicans' 107-101 home loss to Houston, New Orleans head coach Alvin Gentry fired off against the referees.?
"The thing that bothers me more than anything and I really don't care, we try to play the right way, and we play our asses off," Gentry said in his postgame news conference.?
"All we want is an equal opportunity to win the game! Not have a situation where we are guessing on the biggest play of the game, where they call a 3-point foul from the corner. All of you take a look at the play and if you think that's a foul, if anybody out here thinks it's a foul, then you tell me, and I'll shut up and I won't say one more thing. You take a look at the play, and tell me what you think when a guy comes up and winks and says I got him."
Gentry was referring to the foul called on Pelicans point guard Jrue Holiday while? James Harden?was shooting a 3 from the corner in a seven-point game with 5:39 to play in the fourth quarter. The controversial call sent the arena into frenzy, and also eventually earned Gentry a technical foul for arguing, which he also did not agree with.
"When you get technical fouls called when you walk away from a guy, that's not right," added Gentry. "I walked away from him so I wouldn't get a technical foul."
Harden didn't seem to agree with Gentry's assessment of the play after the game. When asked about the play, he said. "He got a piece of me, enough of a piece to affect my shot. Good call."
This was clearly a breaking point for the Pelicans head man, who went on to complain about his star player not getting the same type of calls as some of the guys of his caliber in the NBA.
"What happens to us is that AD [ Anthony Davis]?never gets a call, he never gets a call. We talk about them holding him, we talk about them grabbing him on rolls, and we talk about them coming under him on post-ups. He never gets a call. Not one. You know why, because he doesn't bitch and complain about it. He just keeps playing the game. So then it comes down to just a few plays in the game, you can't guess on plays when you got teams playing for playoff spots. You can't guess on a foul. That's not right. That's not the way you do it. We are fighting our asses off for a playoff spot."
On Friday, Clippers head coach Doc Rivers was fined $15,000 for comments about the officiating in his team's game against the Rockets. Following his rant, Gentry was well aware of the inevitable fine coming his way, turning to a member of his public relations staff and saying, "Well, that's 15 grand."
A much more cooled down Gentry was in the Rockets' locker room following the game, and by then word had spread about his tirade. Rockets coach Mike D'Antoni approached the New Orleans boss, with wallet in hand, and jokingly offered him a "few bucks" to help pay for the fine that will be handed down by the league.
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