Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Associated Press
NEW YORK - Houston Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy was fined $25,000 by the NBA on Friday for publicly criticizing the officials.
Van Gundy complained about the treatment of center Yao Ming in a story that appeared in the Houston Chronicle on Wednesday. He said he was irritated by the way the Rockets' victory at Miami last Sunday was officiated, and also said what was being tolerated inside was both "reckless" and "mayhem."
Yao had a cut on his arm after the game, which Van Gundy noted in his comments.
"It just irritated me," Van Gundy said. "The whole game irritated me the way he was officiated. 'There was no contact,' (officials said) yet there was blood streaming down his arm. They tell you there's no contact and you're watching blood flow, unless he's so self-hurtful he's taking his own nails to his skin and ripping it open to draw attention to himself, you have to ask yourself, 'What am I seeing? Why can't what I'm seeing and he's obviously feeling and seeing be seen?'"
Van Gundy was fined $100,000 by the league in May 2005 - the largest assessed against a coach - after saying that an official who was not working the playoffs told him that Yao was being targeted following complaints by Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, Houston's first-round opponent in those playoffs.