Cavaliers' J.B. Bickerstaff Fined $15K for Criticizing Referees After Loss to 76ers

Cleveland Cavaliers head coach J.B. Bickerstaff was not happy with the referees after Sunday's loss to the Philadelphia 76ers, and he let his feelings be known. Now, he's paying for it.

The NBA announced Monday that Bickerstaff has been fined $15,000 for publicly criticizing officials. 

"That game was taken from us," Bickerstaff had said after Sunday's loss. "We deserved to win it."

The Cavaliers lost the game 112-108 and fell to 43-36. The Sixers were led by Joel Embiid's 44 points and 17 rebounds. Bickerstaff was particularly unhappy with the free-throw disparity, as the Sixers shot 42 freebies and made 35 of them. Embiid had 20 attempts from the charity stripe by himself, knocking down 17.

"The one thing you can't defend is the free-throw line, and that's absurd," Bickerstaff said. "Our guys deserved way better than they got tonight."

Cleveland was called for 28 fouls, while Philadelphia was whistled for 19 in a very physical game. Bickerstaff pointed to a key moment down the stretch when Cavs point guard Darius Garland drew contact from Embiid on a missed layup with 15.2 seconds left.

"Darius was fouled," Bickerstaff said. "He did his job and got to a spot and got fouled. No whistle."

Bickerstaff said he felt that the Sixers' star players were getting preferential treatment throughout the game.

"They're great players, and they understand how to play through the rules," he said of Embiid and James Harden. "They know how to manipulate the rules. This is no knock or disrespect to those guys. But the game has to be consistent on both ends of the floor. We were searching for that consistency, and we never found it."