The fallout from Cade Cunningham’s ejection against the Thunder has turned into one of the biggest talking points in the NBA right now. Fans are fuming, players are frustrated, and JB Bickerstaff? He’s absolutely had it with the officiating.
After the Pistons’ 113-107 loss, Bickerstaff didn’t just vent—he went off.
“We deserve a level of respect because we’re competing our tails off,” he said, his voice dripping with frustration. “The least that they could do is get the same respect that everybody else in this league gets. Enough is enough of it.”
He wasn’t just talking about Cunningham’s back-to-back technicals—though that was a huge part of it. The bigger issue? The way the game was called. From Bickerstaff’s perspective, the referees ignored clear fouls against Detroit while overanalyzing plays in OKC’s favor. And when Cunningham got tossed? That was the final straw.
Fans inside Little Caesars Arena were livid, breaking into loud “Ref, you s**k!” chants. And honestly? They had every reason to be.
But while Detroit was boiling over, OKC was cool as ever. And why was that? Simple—they saw this coming before the game even started.
Mark Daigneault and the Thunder came prepared. “I mean, we came into the game, we do analytics on every referee crew, and that referee crew was the loosest whistle coming into the game that we’ve seen all season,” Daigneault revealed.
Yep. OKC literally studied the refs beforehand. They knew it would be a physical game, so instead of fighting the officiating, they adjusted to it. “I thought our guys did a great job of not getting caught up in really anything other than just trying to go compete and win,” Daigneault said.
But here’s where it gets even more interesting—OKC doesn’t just game-plan for opponents. They game-plan for referees, too. “We have data on every official, and we get a report going into every game,” Daigneault explained. “Referees are like players—they have tendencies.”
Let that sink in for a second. While Detroit was caught off guard by the officiating, OKC used it to their advantage.
So yeah, Bickerstaff and the Pistons felt robbed. But the Thunder? They didn’t just deal with the refs. They played the refs—and that might’ve been the difference.
(This is a developing story…)
The post OKC Thunder HC Shares Blueprint of Combating NBA Refs’ Injustice After JB Bickerstaff’s Fiery Rant appeared first on EssentiallySports.
