Kings Coach Mike Brown Uses Laptop To Vent Frustration Over ‘Inconsistent’ Refereeing

After an understandably frustrating 143-142 overtime loss to the Milwaukee Bucks on Sunday night, Sacramento Kings head coach Mike Brown brought out a laptop in the postgame press conference to highlight refereeing decisions, which he felt had cost them the game.

Brown was ejected early in the fourth quarter almost immediately after he stormed onto the court during play and screamed in referee Intae Twang’s face. Brown’s reaction was an accumulation of his frustration over several calls and no-calls which he strongly disagreed with throughout the game.

Referring to a play in which Bucks center Brook Lopez was defending Kings shooting guard Malik Monk, Brown justified his frustration.

“From what the NBA tells me the rule is, if you go vertical you’ve got to have two hands up,” Brown said, “If the rule is you got to go vertical with two hands up, how can you take away two free throws when a guy when a guy got his forearm down here? But that’s not what the rule is.”

Brown used his laptop to point out a play earlier in the game where a shooting foul behind the three-point line for what he called “incidental contact” was issued to Kings star guard De’Aaron Fox giving the Bucks star guard, Damian Lillard, three free throws. Brown also noted how the Bucks had 14 more free throw attempts in the first half than the Kings. He clearly felt frustrated with an inconsistency in the refereeing.

“The referees are human, and they’re going to make mistakes, but you just hope that there’s some sort of consistency and there’s some sort of communication between the refs,” Brown said. “The refs tonight, they were great, they communicated with me all night. But in terms of consistency, you guys saw it right here. In my opinion, the consistency wasn’t here tonight.”

After Brown’s ejection, the Kings stormed back from a 12-point hole and took the game into overtime but ultimately fell short after a game-winning three-point buzzer-beater from Lillard to give the Bucks the win.

The Kings lost to the Phoenix Suns in another close game on Tuesday and will try to snap their three-game losing streak against the Indiana Pacers at home on Thursday night.