By Alex Molina / amolina@eurohoops.net
He took a few days to address it, but Pedro Martínez wanted to settle scores after the Copa del Rey defeat.
Despite refusing to discuss the refereeing after the loss to Real Madrid, claiming that los Blancos beat them “because they were better than us in the last two minutes,” the Catalan coach took to his social media account today to remind everyone of refereeing decisions that clearly went against his team.
Pedro Martínez no piensa que el arbitraje haya sido clave en la derrota del Valencia Basket
🗣 “Nada que decir. Nos han ganado porque nosotros hemos sido mejores que ellos durante muchísimos minutos, pero en los últimos dos minutos, ellos han sido mejores que nosotros” pic.twitter.com/DLyYexjUeR
— Alex Molina (@alex30mp) February 21, 2026
The first play that the Valencia Basket coach brought up was the one involving Tavares and de Larrea. As he pointed out in a subsequent tweet, the young Valencia point guard was perfectly positioned before the Real Madrid center took him down, an action that was ultimately called a defensive foul.
Larry was also the subject of a refereeing decision that ended up hurting Valencia Basket, who saw an action—at least as similar to Costello’s in the same game—not penalized in the same way. With the sole objective of stopping him, Deck brought the Valencia point guard down abruptly, an action that the referees first called an unsporstmanlike foul but, to the surprise of almost everyone, changed their decision after reviewing the instant replay.
— Pedro Martínez (@pedroma2014) February 24, 2026
To end his rant, Pedro Martinez posted a photo of Maledon clearly stepping on the end line after receiving a pass, an action that the referees also failed to notice.