Longtime Warriors play-by-play commentator and KNBR radio host Bob Fitzgerald joined the Murph and Mac Show Monday morning, and pulled no punches during a rant blasting NBA officials’ treatment of Warriors point guard Stephen Curry.
In the wake of a controversial moving screen by the Spurs’ Dewayne Dedmon that went uncalled, and left Curry with a hobble following Game 3, Fitzgerald argued that the two-time MVP is treated unfairly by referees on a game-to-game basis, and that he is not afforded the same treatment as his undersized peers.
Fitzgerald began by highlighting a number of occasions in Game 3 where Curry was knocked around without a whistle being blown.
“There was also a moving screen later in the game that was just a running body block at Steph, and you also had Steph get crushed on a couple drives which is just zero love at all,” Fitz said after being asked about the Dedmon screen. “So that’s just a typical continuation of how the hell you win back-to-back MVPs, and you get zero love at the line.
“He’s the most mis-officiated player in the league, by far, by far. The amount of contact Steph Curry is supposed to absorb and be dealt with, without any free throw benefit is a joke. It was last year in the Finals, in terms of the movement off the ball. I mean they molest him. It’s full on bear hugs and tackling, but in this case, he had the ball one time, went in the lane, and took like a full body block to the side, still made the layup, no ‘and 1.’ Then there was the Dedmon moving screen where he kneed him basically in the back of his knee which was — people lost their mind over Zaza — this was a joke in terms of deliberate, trying to injury a guy, and then there was also kind’ve a running body block in the second half where Steph was trailing a player who was guarding him, and just got blown up, in front of God and everyone, and there’s not a whistle.”
Fitz believes the league needs to step in before something serious happens.
“The league should not wait for one of the top five players in the world to be injured before they go ‘wow, we just never saw that Curry got bounced around like a piñata all the time.’ It’s rankled me all year that if you breathe on (Russell) Westbrook or (James) Harden or look at them, they’re shooting 20 free throws. But Steph Curry has to have a machete taken to his neck before he ever gets to the foul line. It’s pathetic. For as great as the league is, why he has to endure what he has to endure, makes no sense.”
What’s more, Fitz argues, is that Curry is also called for ticky-tack fouls while playing defense.
“The classic to me is, that he’s called for all kinds of reaches and touch fouls. Now all his fouls the other night, those were all legitimate fouls, and those were good calls. But you’ll see, scale of 1 to 10, if Steph has a level of contact of six or seven, it’s a foul. If someone fouls him at 11, there’s never anything, and I just don’t get it. And these are really, at this point in the season, the best officials, and a lot of them I know very well, and I would just love to show like nine plays from that game and say, ‘how the hell is this not a whistle?’ It doesn’t make any sense. I credit Steph that he doesn’t just take that mouth piece and chuck it at somebody and lose his mind. I mean at some point, you go full Lou Piniella and lose it, but he doesn’t, and that’s what makes him the baby-faced assassin. That level of toughness that people don’t appreciate with him is that, he puts up with a lot of that garbage and he’s still there to rip your heart out, so I love that about him.”
Listen to the full interview below. To hear Fitz’s comments on Curry skip to the 7:00 mark.