'I was disgusted': JB's concerns not limited to a single game
Pistons coach JB Bickerstaff went off on game officials following his team's loss to the best team in the West. It wasn't sour grapes.
Detroit vs. Everybody.
I’m usually not one to buy into catch phrases that appear on t-shirts, hats and anywhere else you want to put them. And I feel like the “Detroit vs. Everybody” sentiment is more self-pity than a rallying cry.
It’s a whiner’s tune, if you ask me.
Mainly because every sports fan base in every city in the nation feels their teams are being picked on. Whether by the officials, the TV announcers, the league or the media in general.
Whine, whine, whine.
But as I watched Pistons coach JB Bickerstaff go off on the officiating after Saturday night’s loss to the OKC Thunder at LCA, I didn’t see him as a whiner.
The NBA, maybe more than any of the four major team sports, has a caste system when it comes to in-game officiating. It’s not new.
It’s been that way since I started following the league in the 1970s.
Whether it’s rookies not “getting calls,” superstars “getting them,” franchises being favored or at the very least, the home team getting the benefit of the whistles—all that stuff has been going on for years.
But Bickerstaff, in his outburst on the dais Saturday night, was, ahem, mildly concerned about something more.
Respect. And not just in terms of isolated calls that happen every night in the NBA.
"What you saw tonight was disgusting," Bickerstaff said. "It was a disgusting display of disrespect towards our guys and what we’re trying to do."
JB wasn’t bitching about a particular call, or even calls. His anger went deeper than that.
"I tried to have a conversation with an official, the official is arguing with [Thunder coach] Mark [Daigneault], I say his name one time and he screams at me and tells me that’s enough," Bickerstaff said.
"We understand that we play a style of ball that’s physical, it’s on the edge. I coach my ass off in a passionate way, I’m into the game, our players are into the game. We understand that. But we deserve a level of respect because we’re competing our tails off and bringing something positive to this league."
Basically JB was saying, “Hey, we’re here to compete, too!”
With about 7 minutes left in the third quarter, the Pistons was whistled for five (5) technical fouls.
First, Ausar Thompson and Bickerstaff got teed up. Then with 47 seconds remaining in the quarter, Cade Cunningham (no less) was called for two technicals for arguing with the officials and was ejected from the game.
The flurry helped the Thunder—a team that really needs no help from the officials—build a 91-75 lead.
Yeah, that happens. But Bickerstaff was talking in general terms about how he feels his team is treated on a nightly basis. It was a visceral reaction—something that smacked of someone who’d had enough. He wasn’t just complaining about the Thunder game. At least that was my take.
JB, before he crumpled up the stat sheet and tossed it aside on his way out of the abbreviated presser, was talking about how he feels the Pistons—coming off a 14-68 season and a bad team for several years—are not seen as a serious basketball team.
If you think that’s in the same category of the whining I spelled out earlier, OK.
But you’d be missing the bigger picture.
Bickerstaff is not only trying to inject a new winning culture into the Pistons organization, he’s trying to upend how the league’s officials view his team.
It’s also why Cunningham’s lack of whistles on his behalf is a hot topic among Pistons fans. Maybe that will change now that Cade is an All-Star. Maybe.
The NBA’s caste system is a tough nut to crack. It doesn’t happen overnight. And it certainly won’t happen in one season. The Pistons’ stench since 2019 (their last playoff appearance) won’t go away simply by opening some windows.
Yet Bickerstaff is opening them.
Good for JB. His emotional rant wasn’t just a scorned coach letting loose about a single game’s calls. He felt he and his players were being disrespected in general.
It’ll play well in the locker room. But JB’s gambit is that it will play well in the league as a whole—bit by bit.
I was proud of him.