Luka Doncic Claims FIBA Refs Feared Canada’s Dillon Brooks

Slovenia was eliminated from the FIBA World Cup on Wednesday, and Dallas Mavericks star Luka Doncic claims that officials purposely avoided calling fouls on Canada’s Dillon Brooks.

Dalton Trigg | Sep 6, 2023

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When you’re a team like Slovenia with only one NBA-caliber player, you must receive a handful of favorable breaks to pull off an upset over an NBA-laden team like Canada.

Unfortunately for Slovenia, that didn’t happen on Wednesday, as they saw their FIBA World Cup journey end in a 100-89 quarterfinals loss to Canada. Dallas Mavericks star Luka Doncic finished with a team-high 26 points, four rebounds, five assists and two steals, but his game ended early as he was ejected nearly halfway through the fourth quarter after arguing for a foul that wasn’t called.

Although there’s no use in crying over spilled milk, it’s worth pointing out that Canada ended up with 33 free-throw attempts to Slovenia’s 19. Doncic gave his thoughts on the officiating after the match.

"The referees told to one of the guys: 'We're not gonna call a foul on [Dillon Brooks] because he's coming at us,” Doncic said. “I know I complain a lot, but I don't think it's fair."

If what Doncic said is true, he’s correct in pointing out that it was an unfair advantage for Canada. A foul is a foul no matter how you want to slice it, and officials shouldn’t be deterred from making calls out of fear of a player ‘coming at them.’

Now, to be fair, Dillon Brooks was ejected as well after he got caught talking trash to a Slovenia player, but by that point, the damage had already been done through the course of three quarters.

Doncic knows he complains too much, and a lot of times he has a legitimate reason to do so. However, in the grand scheme of things, his complaining doesn’t change any of the calls that are missed. Going forward, Doncic will need to focus on keeping his emotions in check, and perhaps that will lead to him being able to gain the respect of the officials — both in international play and in the NBA.

Published Sep 6, 2023

DALTON TRIGG

Dalton Trigg is the Editor-In-Chief for Dallas Basketball, as well as the Executive Editor overseeing Inside The Rockets, Inside The Spurs, All Knicks, and The Magic Insider. He is the founder and host for the Mavs Step Back Podcast, which is a proud part of the Blue Wire podcast network. Trigg graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi’s College of Business and Economic Development with a bachelor’s degree in entrepreneurship in 2016. After spending a few years with multiple Dallas Mavericks-related blogs, including SB Nation’s Mavs Moneyball, Trigg joined DallasBasketball.com as a staff writer in 2018 and never looked back. At the start of 2022, he was promoted to the EIC title he holds now. Through the years, Trigg has conducted a handful of high-profile one-on-one interviews to add to his resume — in both writing and podcasting. Some of his biggest interviews have been with Mavs owner Mark Cuban, Mavs GM Nico Harrison, now-retired legend Dirk Nowitzki and many other current/former players and team staffers. Many of those interviews and other articles by Trigg have been aggregated by other well-known sports media websites, such as Yahoo Sports, CBS Sports, Bleacher Report and others. You can find Trigg on all major social media channels, but his most prevalent platform is on Twitter. Whether it’s posting links to his DBcom work, live-tweeting Mavs games or merely giving his opinions on things going on with Dallas and the rest of the NBA, the daily content never stops rolling. For any inquiries, please email Dalton@MavsStepBack.com.