PORTLAND — After his team’s 133-125 loss to the Dallas Mavericks on Thursday, Trail Blazers star Damian Lillard expressed frustration with a no-call that eventually led to him receiving a technical foul in the game’s closing seconds.
With 3 minutes, 42 seconds left and Portland down by 15, Lillard scored on a reverse layup but thought he had also drawn a foul on the Mavs’ Luka Doncic.
“The guy smacked me in the head, and the referee is right there,” Lillard said. “I ask him, ‘How are you going to make that call?’ He tells me, ‘We all agreed that you leaned in.’ That’s an insult, man. ‘You leaned into him?’ He smacked me in the head. That’s frustrating as hell, man. And then you get that type of explanation.”
Immediately after the play, Lillard gestured at his head, then yelled at referee Ray Acosta, who had the clearest view of the play on the baseline.
Despite Lillard’s 47 points, giving him a combined 108 in two games this week after he scored a career-high 61 in Monday’s win over the Golden State Warriors, the Blazers got no closer than 10 over the final four minutes of the game.
As Lillard was set to check out with 13.7 seconds remaining, he confronted Acosta about the call and received his third technical foul of the season.
“I went right up to him and I said something,” Lillard said afterward. “I said if you say, ‘I didn’t see it,’ that’s one thing. Whatever. They say that all the time. It’s just a way to get out of that conversation. But you can’t tell me, ‘All three of us agreed you leaned in,’ when I’m doing a reverse layup. I don’t have time to lean back and try to get fouled while I’m looking at the rim, making a reverse layup and the guy’s smacking me in my head. Don’t insult me like that. Just say, ‘I didn’t see it.'”