Pistons’ J.B. Bickerstaff Calls Out Officiating After Overtime Loss to Mavs
Tensions boiled over in Dallas on Thursday night, and not just on the scoreboard. After the Pistons dropped a hard-fought overtime battle to the Mavericks, head coach J.B. Bickerstaff didn’t hold back when addressing what he saw as a troubling pattern from the officiating crew - specifically, a lack of objectivity.
The numbers tell part of the story. Dallas attempted 36 free throws to Detroit’s 20, a disparity that raised eyebrows.
But the real flashpoint came in the second half, when rookie forward Ausar Thompson was ejected for arguing a call with crew chief John Goble. Bickerstaff himself was hit with a technical at halftime, and afterward, he made it clear he believed the officiating crew - or at least one member of it - entered the game with a bias.
“A referee makes a comment to me about, ‘Night by night, this is how our interactions are,’” Bickerstaff told reporters. “So that says to me that the referee is coming into the game not being objective.”
That’s a strong accusation in any context, but especially in a league where coaches and players are often fined for even hinting at bias. Bickerstaff didn’t name Goble directly, but the context left little doubt about who he was referencing. He pointed to the technical he received at halftime - not for yelling, not for arguing, but for what he described as simply trying to pull Cade Cunningham away from the officials to de-escalate the situation.
“I don’t say anything to him,” Bickerstaff said. “I go to grab Cade, to get Cade off the floor.
He gives me a technical foul. That’s my job - to get my player away from the referee, get us back to halftime so we can have the conversations that we need to have.”
In the official postgame pool report, Goble offered a different perspective. He cited “continuous complaining” as the reason for Bickerstaff’s technical and said Thompson was ejected for “aggressively approaching and making contact with the official.”
Bickerstaff pushed back on that explanation, arguing that it was Goble who initiated the contact with Thompson, not the other way around.
“If you take a look at the play where he ejects A.T., he steps towards A.T. That’s where the minimal contact happens - where he steps towards him and initiates it,” Bickerstaff said.
To be clear, Bickerstaff didn’t blame the loss on the officiating. The Pistons had their chances and couldn’t close the deal in overtime. But the coach made it clear that, in his eyes, one official’s actions went beyond the bounds of impartiality.
“This wasn’t about the refs,” he said. “But one guy was trying to make it about the refs.
And that’s not what this should’ve been. Anybody who comes into the game and says ‘Night by night,’ he clearly has an unobjective point of view.”
John Goble is a veteran in the league, now in his 17th season as an NBA referee. But Thursday night’s game left Bickerstaff questioning whether experience always translates to fairness - and whether certain interactions between coaches and officials might be carrying over from game to game in ways that shouldn’t.
For a young Pistons team still learning how to win close games, it’s another tough lesson. But for Bickerstaff, the bigger issue was the perception - and potentially the reality - that his team wasn’t getting a fair shake from the start.