Raptors guard Fred VanVleet fined $30,000 for criticizing officials

"I'll take a fine, I don't really care. I thought Ben Taylor was f—ing terrible tonight. For most nights, out of the three [officials] there's one or two that just f— the game up," VanVleet said. "It's been like that a couple games in a row. Denver was tough, obviously. You come out tonight competing pretty hard, in the third quarter, I get a bulls—t tech, [it] changes the whole dynamic of the game, changes the whole flow of the game.

Most of the refs are trying hard, I like a lot of refs, they're trying hard, they're pretty fair, they communicate well, and then you got the other ones who just want to be d—cks. It just kind of f—ks the game up. Nobody's coming to see that s—t, they come to see the players. I think we're losing a bit of the fabric of what the NBA is and was. It's been disappointing this season.

You can look it up, most of my techs this year have been with Ben Taylor officiating. At a certain point as a player, you feel it's personal. It's never a good place to be. That's not why we lost tonight, we got outplayed but it definitely makes it tougher to overcome.

There've been certain times this year where I feel our team is getting consumed with the way the whistle is going, especially after the night we just had in Denver, the way that finished. There were a couple calls early that we all disagreed with, and if I say to my team 'Come on guys, let's keep playing through the bulls—t' and that warrants a tech, I think that's a little bit crazy.

What are we doing? There's a fine line, obviously, I understand that but I think the jurisdiction and the power trip that we've been on this year with some of our officials in this league is getting out of hand. I'll take my fine for speaking on it but this is f—ing ridiculous."