LeBron rips refs after Cavs' 4th-quarter meltdown: 'Every play counts'

LeBron James may have placed a strongly-worded call to the NBA's referee hotline after Sunday's stunning loss to the Atlanta Hawks.

Referees could never be the sole cause of a team squandering a 26-point fourth-quarter lead, but James - who fouled out of the game on a dubious call in overtime - made clear afterward that he felt the officiating had contributed to his Cavaliers' fall-from-ahead defeat.

"It wasn't a foul, on my sixth foul," James told reporters of the play that got him booted from the game, on which he made contact with Hawks forward Paul Millsap while angling for rebounding position. "I knew I had five, and I knew the ball was going long. So, I grazed Millsap a little bit, but I mean ... I didn't push him or anything like that."

James was also peeved by the call on a jump ball in the final seconds of regulation that ultimately led to Millsap's game-tying bucket. The call was made while Kyrie Irving was wrapped up in the corner after an inbound pass in the Cavs' end, but both Hawks players wrapping him up were standing out of bounds when the whistle blew, and James said that even before that happened, he'd been signaling to referee Leroy Richardson for a timeout.

"We had some bad breaks, obviously, with the jump ball," James said. "A couple of their guys were out of bounds. And then with the jump ball for Kyrie in the corner, I'm sitting right next to the ref and asking for a timeout, and the explanation he gave me, I never heard in my 14-year career. Never. So it doesn't take away from the fact that we still had a huge lead to start the fourth, but every play counts, no matter what's going on."

Of the explanation for not granting the timeout, James said Richardson told him he couldn't tell who had possession of the ball at the time, so couldn't determine whether the Cavs were in position to call timeout. James wasn't buying it.

"I said, 'That doesn't make any sense because we have the ball. I entered the ball to Kyrie, so you shouldn't even be worried about the tie-up or not. I'm calling it as soon as I saw Kyrie is getting tied up in the corner.' So I've never heard that one before. I've never heard that explanation before in my life."