Sacramento Kings coach Mike Brown has been fined $35,000 for “aggressively pursuing a game official during live play,” Joe Dumars, the NBA’s executive vice president and head of basketball operations, announced Tuesday. This occurred during the second quarter of the Kings’ 108-103 loss against the Brooklyn Nets on Sunday.
Upset about a non-call, Brown got in an official’s face and may have inadvertently bumped him. Here’s a video of the incident, via Fox40’s Sean Cunningham:
And here’s the non-call that set Brown off:
Brown told reporters postgame that, in the moment, he wanted to fight for — and galvanize — his team.
“I thought Colby [Jones] got hit going to the rim, and I just wanted to show our guys that, hey, we all need to fight. I’ma try to fight, you guys try to fight and see if we can find a way to get ourselves back into the game. And if we’re going to go down, we’re going to go down swinging.”
In a way, this worked: Sacramento was down 19 at that point, and it cut the deficit to eight points by halftime. Had Brown pursued the official a bit less aggressively, though, he could have saved himself $35,000.
The Kings fell again on Monday against Oklahoma City and have slipped below .500 (8-10) during a three-game losing streak.