Anthony Edwards Absolutely Blasted Officiating After Beating Thunder: 'Cheating-Ass Refs'

On Monday night the Minnesota Timberwolves narrowly took down the Oklahoma City Thunder, 107-101, in a clash of Western Conference superpowers (what a sentence, right?). Anthony Edwards led the way for the winning side with 27 points on 10-of-20 shooting while playing 40 minutes. And boy, did he have a lot to say about the whistle for his team afterwards.

The Timberwolves shot 15 free throws on the night. Edwards shot four, about two below his season average of 6.6 attempts per game. As a team the Thunder shot 22 free throws, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander had 15 on his own. So while the overall discrepancy wasn't that large it's obviously hard to ignore when one player has the same number of free throw attempts as the other team combined.

It certainly rubbed Edwards the wrong way and the Minnesota superstar wasted no time ripping into the officials. Literally moments after the final whistle he was pulled aside for a postgame interview by Bally Sports Minnesota and said outright he's fine with taking the fine but he has to say that the refs were awful.

Upon walking away from the interview Edwards celebrated with Rudy Gobert before turning and barking back towards the court, "Cheating-ass refs!"

But he was not done. Once he arrived in the locker room, Edwards saw an ESPN reporter and started ripping the refs once again without being asked. Per Tim MacMahon:

"The refs was bad tonight. Yeah, they was terrible," Edwards told ESPN without prompting. "We was playing 8-on-5."

Edwards led the Timberwolves with 27 points, shooting 10-of-20 from the floor and 4-of-4 from the free throw line. Edwards thought he earned several more trips to the line.

"The cat got their tongue tonight, so it's all good," Edwards said of the referees. "It's not fair, but it's all good."

"The cat got their tongue tonight" is truly an outstanding criticism of officiating. More players should utilize such sayings. It won't allow them to dance around the fine but it's more fun than the standard referee blasting we see from frustrated players.

I'm not going to get on the "NBA officiating has been the worst it's ever been" train, but it definitely has been subpar. More problematically it doesn't seem like the referees are taking criticism like this very well and instead are more inclined to start handing out technical fouls like Oprah. Edwards going off like this isn't going to get him more calls next game-- it's going to make him more susceptible to a tight whistle and a quick T.

Regardless, Edwards is going to happily pay the $50,000 coming his way. Sometimes you just gotta get it all out.