While the Brooklyn Nets fandom is celebrating after drawing first blood in the regular season saga with crosstown rival New York Knicks on Tuesday, coach Tom Thibodeau is visibly frustrated. 

Frustrated not only about the defeat, but how the conclusion could have been if officiating, based on his claims, was unblemished. 

In media availability, the defensive specialist coach was fuming on the officials’ management of the duel, citing lapses about foul calls and unfair free throws given.

“I’m gonna take a look at the film, but there was a big discrepancy in free throws,” Thibodeau said. “I can tell you that…I don’t care how the game is called. You can call it tight. You can call it loose, but you gotta call it the same.”

The Nets took 25 shots on the charity stripe in the whole duration, 19 of it came from Kevin Durant and James Harden combined. Meanwhile, Knicks only had 12 which made the 63-year-old furious upon the physicality that his squad have imposed against the opponent. 

“I know Julius (Randle) was driving that ball pretty darn hard — and I’m pissed,” a one-liner that was handed by the New York mentor which marked an exclamation point on his rant. 

Meanwhile, Knickerbockers lead man Julius Randle, who was seen jawing after the final buzzer after, argued in post-game that he he’ll just maintain his position to talk about the game because the referees “clearly don’t understand the game.”

“I’m not going to talk about (the officiating), I’m going to talk about the game, what the players are out there doing,” Randle said. “I’m not going to talk about [the referees] because they clearly don’t understand the game.”

The one-time All-star was in utter disbelief after officials told him that he was stronger enough against the defenders and with that, he wasn’t qualified to clinch foul calls. 

There’s no word yet from the league that a review will be conducted to assess whether there are missed calls in the marquee matchup. As such, it’ll be good to see that the succeeding games will hopefully satisfy both sides from proper officiating and sheer competitiveness. 

The Knicks and Nets are scheduled for an exciting rematch on February 16 inside the the Madison Square Garden.