Don't Blame the Refs, Blame the Rulebook

The Wednesday games' anti-climactic endings were rooted in the letter of the law.

Wednesday night’s NBA games should have been celebrated for their uber-competitiveness and last-second drama.

Instead, the evening was marred by ticky-tack foul calls and labored replay reviews.

With fewer than two minutes to go, the Miami Heat blew a seven-point lead to the Milwaukee Bucks due to untimely turnovers and a controversial three-shot foul by Goran Dragic who was contesting a leaning Khris Middleton. Middleton drained all three free throws to knot the game at 114.

The call drew ire online and from Doris Burke on the broadcast, who steadfastly disagreed with Steve Javie’s fealty towards his former referee colleagues.

Nonetheless, the Heat still had an opportunity for the game-winning shot. As time expired, Jimmy Butler faded away from the baseline for a long two. A clink off the rim followed, then another whistle.

A head-scratching call on Giannis Antetokounmpo for making contact with Butler on his shot brought the Heat forward to the line with zero seconds on the clock. He hit the game-winning free throw, then he hit the second one to push the knife in further.

Despite being a former sports journalist and someone who is inherently dispassionate, I could still understand the frustration with that conclusion. It doesn’t require looking through an emotional prism to understand what fans want at the end of the game. Referees, while understandably necessary, still feel like an external influence separate from gameplay.

But the calls were acceptable. Dragic was undeniably in the landing space of Middleton on his way down. Antetokounmpo made contact with Butler before he finished his shot. Neither had a demonstrable force that altered the actual shot path.

I’m not here to be a rules stickler. Some who are informed genuinely don’t think that it was a foul. But the NBA rulebook has changed to give offenses the benefit of the doubt at every turn. You can contort your body and lean into the defender and still get the call. This happens in the paint all the time with big men that launch straight up to contest shots. You can back-pedal and maybe get the offensive foul, but if you stand pat or move forward it will be called a defensive foul nearly every time. With no hand-checking, with a bigger paint area, with any show of contact being called a foul, the offense always wins.

If I had a say, I’d get rid of the three-shot foul completely to negate shooters from trying to coerce their defenders into unreasonable fouls. If Middleton knew he could only get two free throws from doing that, then that’s not the shot he takes.

Fans will cite unwritten rules of late-game fouls, but if that was truly the case then write it down. Referees have a tough job that no one else wants. It is the most thankless position in sports. But this isn’t Jim Joyce ruining a perfect game.

In the prime time game, the Oklahoma City Thunder had their chance at a game-winner. Twice. Renowned Game 7 flamethrower Luguentz Dort had a go-ahead trey blocked by James Harden, who then evaded Dort’s out of bounds missile to give the Rockets the ball back. Replay to determine the veracity of the call took much of the air out of the game that just featured a spectacular defensive play by one of the league’s best players.

Following a foul and free throw on the other end, the Thunder were positioned to inbound the ball on their side of the court with 1.1 seconds to go, trailing 104-102. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander couldn’t find an open man, and Billy Donovan called a timeout. But not before Chris Paul, perhaps the NBA’s best salesman, goaded the refs into honoring the off-ball foul committed by Harden before the timeout. Once again, an extended replay ensued. The foul led to one shot at the charity stripe and the ball back. Danilo Gallinari stepped to the line and shot like he had just been lifting weights. Miss.

On the inbounds, Gilgeous-Alexander inexplicably passed to an inexplicably double-teamed Steven Adams who was inexplicably 25 feet from the rim. Oklahoma City didn’t even get a shot off.

Thus it was written, two nail-biters got horrendously anti-climactic endings.

Sure, the Thunder did it to themselves there. But the reverberations of such a play would have been felt much more forcefully had the referees not taken so long looking at the replays. But once again, what is the right way to review a judgment call? Pace and momentum are stymied, call accuracy is still questioned. Maybe a stoppage in play nets the NBA a few extra ad dollars.

A play will happen with or without the refs, and using replay on such a consequential call will be inevitable. If we want the pace of play to continue uninterrupted, we can’t not review the play and then show replays on live television. The fomented anger from a call that everyone but the refs can see seems like a much worse alternative.

The refs could have swallowed their whistles instead of calling the late-game fouls in the Bucks-Heat game and I may not have known the difference. But they did, and there is evidence that warranted those calls to be made. Replay was necessary for the Thunder-Rockets game to make the right possession and foul determinations.

I didn’t want it, the broadcasters didn’t want it, the fans didn’t want it. But what we want to have happened is much different than what should have happened.