HOUSTON (SportsRadio 610)- With the Rockets trailing by three in the waning seconds on Saturday night, Fred VanVleet tried to draw foul from Blazers forward Toumani Camara while attempting a game-tying three, only to be denied by all three officials.
"Most teams foul up three now, so driving down the court, listening to their whole bench yell ‘foul!’, VanVleet said after the Rockets 104-98 loss. “Listen to the guy on the ball trying to take the foul, so anticipated a little bit. I had to watch the replay. Ref told me he didn't there was much contact."
Crew chief Courtney Kirkland told the pool reporter a foul should’ve been called on the play.
“In live action, we felt that the defender stayed directly on the path of VanVleet during his attempted motion toward the basket,” Kirkland said. “After video review, we see the defender did close space and did make contact with the hip of VanVleet and a foul should have been called.”
Kirkland said the foul occurred before VanVleet’s three-point attempt, but with the Rockets in the bonus, VanVleet would’ve been awarded two free throws with around 10 seconds on the clock, and the Rockets still had a timeout. Instead, the Rockets had to give a foul, which resulted in Shaedon Sharpe connecting on two free throws to make it a five-point game.
After a Houston timeout with 4.3 seconds left, VanVleet was called for an offensive foul by Kirkland while trying to create space from Camara, and was then ejected on one technical foul by John Conley for using vulgar language and pointing at all three officials.
"I think I'm in enough trouble as it is tonight, so probably don't need to discuss too much officiating with you guys,” VanVleet said. “I'll look at the film and see. Heat of the moment you always feel right. The refs aren't trying to be wrong, but we disagreed quite a bit tonight."
VanVleet’s ejection was the culmination of a frustrating night for the Rockets, who had just beaten the same Portland team by 28 points 24 hours earlier.
“Give them credit,” VanVleet said. “They played hard. They played better than us. It’d be more about giving them credit than trying to discredit what we did. Obviously, we didn't play our best game. Happens like that sometimes. We got to be better.”
The Rockets shot poorly, converting on just 36 percent of their shots and 8-of-32 attempts from behind the three-point line, but more disconcerting was their defense, which allowed Portland to knock down 18 threes.
“They had way too many comfortable walk-up threes or workout shots,” Rockets head coach Ime Udoka said. “We were too low (at) pickup points, and Jerami Grant's walking into some, Sharpe’s walking into some as well.
“I don't think our aggressiveness was the same, or attentiveness was the same as yesterday.”
The loss dropped the Rockets to 12-6 on the season and ended a seven-game home winning streak. They’ll visit the Minnesota Timberwolves on Tuesday when NBA Cup play resumes.