Mitchell goes on unhinged rant after Sixers beat Jazz originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
Donovan Mitchell and the Utah Jazz were leading the Sixers for the majority of Wednesday night’s clash between the two best teams in the NBA. And then they blew a lead late in the fourth quarter, and got smoked in overtime. It happens, especially when the frontrunner for MVP is playing on the other side.
But Mitchell apparently was none too happy with some refereeing down the stretch, especially a few calls that went the Sixers’ way in overtime, and the young gun was ejected in OT.
He threw a little bit of a tantrum on his way out:
Mitchell didn’t stop there, though!
In his postgame press conference, Mitchell went on a bit of a rant about the refereeing, whining about unfair treatment:
He also threw in a couple of expletives, which I’ll let you click through and see for yourself instead of embedding them here.
Look. It’s one thing to complain about refereeing. He’s wrong – while some will point to the free throw disparity, that’s what happens when you shoot 19 more threes than your opponent, and when your opponent has the most dominant big man in the league – but he can do it.
But when Mitchell says “We won this game, in my personal opinion”?
Oh, buddy. That… that’s just sad.
You didn’t win, Donovan. You lost. Your team blew a lead when Doc Rivers put in an all-bench unit, let Furkan Korkmaz smoke you off the baseline for a runner to tie it up, and then went 1-of-9 in overtime because you knew you couldn’t contain the best player in the league.
To make matters worse, Rudy Gobert decided to chime in with his own lame and sad complaints about the refereeing.
If you’d like to read his full whiny diatribe, here’s a link.
I’ve extracted a few key quotes to highlight the hilarity:
“We know that we’re the Utah Jazz, and there may be some people that don’t want to see us go as far as I believe that we can go.”
“I think it’s disrespectful to the game of basketball and to our team.”
“When you’re a small market team – I don’t want to say that, but I really believe it – after playing in this league for eight years, it’s a little harder.”
“That can’t happen because we’re nice guys. You know, Mike Conley has never had a technical in his life and they don’t f***ing respect him. So maybe he should get more technicals.”
Rudy, just stop.
You can be upset, and you can express that frustration, but don’t say things that make you sound like the sorest – and silliest – losers in the league.