|
Do Fed rules permit me to assess a T if I can't identify the player/coach who cursed at me?
Fortson cries foul on referee exchange
By DANNY O'NEIL
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Before referee Jim Clark left the floor after the game last night, he turned and stared at Danny Fortson, who was standing center court for Seattle's customary postgame huddle.
Clark pointed his index finger at Fortson before walking off the court.
It was the parting shot after a fourth-quarter exchange in which Clark strode across the court to confront Fortson during a timeout with 30.2 seconds left.
Clark had just called Fortson for an offensive foul. Fortson was sitting on the scorer's table, and had raised his hands in a shrug toward Clark.
"You got something to say to me, Danny?" Clark said. "You've got something to say, say it to my face."
Coach Nate McMillan stepped in Clark's path to defuse the situation. Sonics associate head coach Dwane Casey steered Fortson toward the end of the bench.
"We won the game," said Fortson, who was called for five personal fouls. "But the little incident when he came charging at me at the end, that was inappropriate. I'll just leave it at that."
Clark called Fortson for an elbowing foul earlier in the game, which Fortson said he hoped would not count as a flagrant foul. Clark also assessed a technical foul on Seattle's bench in the second quarter, five seconds after Fortson had been called for an offensive technical foul. Something was said that caused Clark to turn toward Fortson, Jerome James and Vitaly Potapenko and ask, "Who said that?" Clark gave the technical to the bench after no one responded.
As for the fourth-quarter fireworks with Fortson, Clark told McMillan that Fortson had been directing expletives toward him.
"He (Clark) said something was said to him," McMillan said. "But you don't go chase it. You let it go."
After Fortson was called for the offensive foul, he turned to reporters sitting near Seattle's bench and said it "was the worst (expletive) charging call I've seen in my life." Then he sat down, and Reggie Evans came over to talk to him. It was that conversation that Clark believed was about him.
"He thought I was talking about him, which I don't know how he figured that out," Fortson said of Clark. "He might have wanted to make a scene. It's just unfortunate, but I wasn't falling for it. It was a nice try, but I'm a little smarter than that."
Clark could not be located for comment.
|