The Cleveland Cavaliers and Detroit Pistons are locked in a playoff series and there is already some bad blood brewing. The Cavs took the first game 106-101, which was a much closer game than people anticipated. It didn't come without its controversy and rough patches though as Pistons coach Stan Van Gundy was not impressed with the officiating of the game.
There was probably one play he was talking about in particular where center Andre Drummond was elbowed by LeBron James on a pump fake. Here's the play in question:
Van Gundy then backed off the comments a little bit in his postgame interview per ESPN's Nick Friedell:
"Look, I thought it evened out really well. But early on, I thought there were two pretty obvious offensive fouls down there on him. But it's two calls in an entire game after that."
The veteran coach made sure to clarify that the officials did not ultimately decide the outcome:
"Look, the refereeing had nothing to do with tonight. They did a good job. It went both ways. I thought they did a really good job. It was decided by the players on the floor, as it should be."
I wish he had just stuck to his guns because he's one of the few coaches in the league who can get away with comments like that and the officials will actually keep it in mind going to next game. Alas, he still left his impression and we still got a great SVG moment out of it.
