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Report: Blake Griffin spat on court after taking exception to Game 5 call

Chris Humphreys-USA TODAY Sports

It's no secret that the Los Angeles Clippers are among the league's chattiest teams when it comes to taking issue with officials, as evidenced by their league-leading 90 technical fouls during the regular season, 10 more than the second-most tech-happy team.

Their disgust with officiating came to a boiling point in Tuesday's Game 5 loss to the San Antonio Spurs, which put the Clippers on the brink of elimination.

Doc Rivers was fined $25,000 for criticizing the officiating, but his public complaints were nothing compared to Blake Griffin's reported behavior.

Considering how the game was officiated, and that Chris Paul was assessed a technical foul in the fourth quarter for tossing the ball back to the official too roughly, it seems preposterous that a player spitting on the court in protest wouldn't warrant a tech.

The Clippers attempted five more free throws and were whistled for five less fouls than the Spurs in Game 5, but much of that was due to San Antonio's intentional fouling of DeAndre Jordan.

A potential go-ahead basket by Jordan with four seconds remaining in the fourth was called back due to offensive basket interference, although, in that case, video replay deemed it the correct call.

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