After the hectic finish to Game 3, where many believe that the officials blew a call that might have saved the game for the Mavs, Mark Cuban got into an exchange with Kenyon Martin’s mother and referred to her son as a “thug.”
During the postgame chaos after Saturday’s Nuggets-Mavericks game, Dallas owner Mark Cuban had a brief but heated confrontation with Lydia Moore, the mother of Denver’s Kenyon Martin, who was seated near the tunnel that leads to the Mavs’ locker room.
Cuban said Sunday by e-mail that when he walked off the court, a fan was screaming about the Nuggets being “thugs,” so Cuban said to Martin’s mother: “That includes your son.”
According to Martin’s agent, Brian Dyke, Cuban spotted Moore amid numerous Nuggets fans and said, unprovoked, “Your son is a punk.” Regardless of what insult was stated, NBA spokesman Tim Frank said, “The situation on the floor postgame is being reviewed.”
Cuban was visibly angry after Game 3 because he believed the officials missed numerous key calls down the stretch, notably the noncall on Denver’s Carmelo Anthony, who avoided a potential foul and calmly hit the winning 3-pointer with one second left.
Cuban said by e-mail he knew Martin’s mother, because after a previous game that Denver won, she had approached him and made trash-talk-type comments.
The NBA released a statement that said that the officials missed an intentional foul in the waning seconds that led to Anthony’s game-winning shot, but when I first saw the play, I didn’t think there was enough contact to warrant an automatic whistle. That kind of contact happens on virtually every play in an NBA game. It was a judgment call, and the officials apparently made the decision to let Wright’s contact on Anthony go. Wright didn’t wrap him up or make it completely obvious that he was trying to take a foul, so there was room for error.
The other question I have is did the Mavs notify each official that their plan was to commit a foul on the inbounds pass? If the refs were aware of what the Mavs were trying to do, it would have been more likely that they would have made the call. Here’s the final play, in case you missed it:
As for Cuban, it’s not a big surprise that he got into a heated exchange with Martin’s mom, or any Nuggets fan for that matter. At heart, Cuban is first and foremost a fan of his team and fans don’t always behave in a professional or appropriate manner. Should he be fined? Yes, assuming there is a code of conduct for team owners.
