LOS ANGELES (AP) - Doc Rivers has a message for the Los Angeles Clippers: stop whining to the referees.
The team is third in the NBA with 32 technical fouls this season behind league-leading Phoenix and the New York Knicks.
The Clippers have a reputation for complaining to the refs and regularly rank among the league leaders in techs.
DeAndre Jordan is tied for fifth in the league with eight, and Austin Rivers, the coach’s son, is tied for seventh with seven. Maurice Speights has five.
The elder Rivers is hardly a good example.
He’s been ejected three times this season, most recently last weekend when he and his son were tossed within 25 seconds of each other in a loss at Houston.
The team’s stars, Blake Griffin and Chris Paul, are frequent complainers, too, but both are currently injured.
The lack of discipline has got to change, the coach said.
He talked to the team before Wednesday’s win against Memphis and announced a new policy that he hopes will slow the technicals.
Rivers said he’s chosen to give money to the Violence Intervention Program in Los Angeles for every technical he gets, and he said the donations are retroactive.
“All of the money that I have been fined is going to them now and any technical foul after that is going to them,” he said. “Any technical foul the players get, I want them to find their group and give it to an organization.”
VIP helps victims of physical and sexual abuse and neglect.
“I have to be the leader of this team,” Rivers said. “My actions have to go first.”
Rivers said he watched video of all the team’s technicals so far. Earlier in the season, he told the team that he would do the fighting and they should focus on playing.
“After watching that, that doesn’t work because they are still doing the fighting and I’m doing the fighting,” he said. “So we are reversing it. Now I am holding everyone accountable, including me, if anyone gets a technical foul.”
His message worked for one game, anyway. The team didn’t have a tech in its 115-106 victory over the Grizzlies.
“It’s extremely tough,” said Jordan, who clapped his hands over his mouth in the fourth quarter to contain himself after a particular call. “We have to do a better job. From myself, to Chris, to Blake, Doc, all of us. We have to let stuff go and just play.”
The younger Rivers said he thought he only had three or four techs this season.
“I didn’t get any techs before I came here,” he said. “For the rest of the year, I’m not going to get anymore. We cleared that up. I’m done.”
The elder Rivers is a fiery, emotional coach, but he said that’s no excuse.
“We are better than that,” he said. “We have to do a better job.”
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