Rick Carlisle crying foul doesn't sit well with NBA, Knicks
Knicks’ Josh Hart driving against the defense of the Indiana Pacers' Tyrese Halliburton during Game 2 at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday, May 8, 2024. Credit: Newsday/J. Conrad Williams Jr.
INDIANAPOLIS
Rick Carlisle sounded desperate.
It’s weird, considering that it is the Knicks, not Carlisle’s Pacers, who have lost so many players to injury that they had only seven healthy players with more than a minute of playoff experience available for Game 3 of their Eastern Conference semifinal series on Friday night.
No matter.
Not only has Carlisle resorted to that time-honored tradition of trying to send a message to officials in the middle of a playoff series by criticizing their calls, but he is pushing a conspiracy theory so ridiculous that the league fined him $35,000 on Friday for “questioning the integrity of the league and its officials.”
After he was ejected in the fourth quarter of Wednesday night’s loss at Madison Square Garden that put the Pacers in a 2-0 hole, Carlisle opened his postgame news conference with a rant that took issue with officiating. He intimated that Josh Hart had been dirty in an interaction with Tyrese Haliburton and promoted the theory that the NBA is prejudiced against small-market teams.
The aim, of course, was to influence the way referees officiated Game 3. But in his attempt to get inside of officials’ heads, Carlisle put himself in the league’s and Hart’s doghouse.
“Rick’s saying whatever he feels. It has nothing to do with us. But at the end of the day, I think it’s pretty disrespectful to us,” Hart said Friday at the Knicks’ shootaround. “Because at the end of the day, we’re out there competing and playing at a high level. It’s not about officiating. It’s not about anything like that. For him to discredit how we’re playing, I feel like that’s pretty disrespectful.”
In the first two games, the Pacers took 36 foul shots compared to the Knicks’ 48. Indiana was whistled for more fouls, 48 to 36. That supports how the Pacers played in the regular season as they committed more fouls (21.4 per game) and surrendered more free-throw attempts (25.98) than any other team in the NBA.
In his rant, Carlisle took issue with Hart for “shoving” Haliburton in the back when “the whole world knows that Haliburton’s got a bad back.” While there was clear contact from behind as Hart chased after Haliburton, Haliburton never lost the ball and no call was made.
“If you look, I hit the ball. Might I have bumped him a little bit? Yeah, I’m running full speed,” Hart said. “He’s running full speed and he’s in front of me. I’m trying to make a play on the ball.”
Carlisle submitted 78 calls from the first two games for the league to review and publicly asserted that “small-market [teams] deserve a fair shot no matter where they’re playing.”
Now it’s certainly true that a final four of Minnesota, Oklahoma City, Indiana and Cleveland would be a ratings nightmare, but no one is buying the notion that there is a league-wide conspiracy to keep small-market teams out.
Carlisle, his pockets $35,000 lighter, softened his tone in his pregame news conference on Friday but still managed to get his point across when asked what his reaction was to the fine.
“I’m just going to support my players and our fan base and our ownership 100%,” Carlisle said before adding that he is done talking about it.
Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau, who coached previously in Minnesota, was asked in his pregame news conference if he has seen a difference in the way big-market and small-market teams are treated by officials.
“No,” Thibodeau said. “[Officiating] is not an easy job. If you just went by how you define what a screen is, you could call a foul on it. Every game, you just want consistency. I don’t care if it’s tight or looser. As long as it’s consistent.”
What would the playoffs be without some mud-slinging gamesmanship? Thibodeau understands what Carlisle was trying to do as the series moved to Gainbridge Fieldhouse for Games 3 and 4. Thibodeau had plenty to be worried about regarding his own team, which has lost two key players — OG Anunoby and Mitchell Robinson — since the series started.
For the first time since the series began, the Knicks were not favored in the game. In fact, they were seven-point underdogs.
Hart, who has played in two of the NBA’s biggest markets in Los Angeles and New York and two of its smallest in Portland and New Orleans, said the notion that the league has it in for small-market teams is “idiotic.”
“That’s so stupid, bro,” Hart said. “We’re gonna say that the big market always wins, but the Knicks haven’t won a chip in 51 years. So obviously that doesn’t hold much weight. I think that’s pretty idiotic. At the end of the day, it’s who’s playing the best.”
Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.