Portland Trail Blazers center Jusuf Nurkic called out the referees after fouling out for the second straight game last night. In his post-game press conference, Nurkic pleaded with the referees to have a closer look at the fouls as well as the attention the Denver Nuggets were paying to the leg he gruesomely broke two years ago.
Here is a video of Nurkic answering questions, released by the Blazers:
Nurkic discussed a number of topics, but his most interesting comments concerned the officiating:
“It’s my fault to get in foul trouble, but at the same time, I’m looking at the fouls and I can’t agree on all of those, I really can’t.”
“Nikola (Jokic) is a great player but he just grabs my arm and pulled my hand and they give me a foul and that’s unacceptable in the playoffs
“They have to have four referees out there, obviously I know how much I need to stay on the court for my team.
“I don’t want to necessarily get fined and saying all the wild stuff.”
“They got to communicate with us more. I broke my leg two years ago, for some reason when people go into my shins, they’re supposed to penalize fouls and those little guards are getting away with everything.”
“And when you have people with hands on my legs, I just feel like there are supposed to be different looks, especially with the history with me and I know that they’re going to be there.
“I’m not going to try run them over, I’m going to try and avoid them.
Most analysts agree, if Portland has any chance of progressing to the next round, Nurkic has to stay on the court and out of foul trouble.
Teammate Damian Lillard also questioned some of the calls in his post game press conference.