NBA Flow and more

Who's more qualified to talk about flow than a PhD student working on shallow-water modeling?

While some people are pointing the blame at the officials for the lack of "flow" in the conference finals series pitting the Lakers against the Nuggets and the Cavs against the Magic, I think the majority of the blame belongs elsewhere. Now, don't get carried away and think I'm saying that the officiating has been excellent in the playoffs. That definitely hasn't been the case ... and more on that subject later. No, the blame belongs on the players, coaches and commentators.

Obviously, the players are the ones committing the fouls being called by the officials. From Andrew Bynum's two-handed hatchet job on Chris "Birdnest" Andersen to Dante Jones' two-hand shove to the back of Kobe Bryant to Anderson Varejao attempting to hug Dwight Howard to prevent, to no avail, an easy two - which Howard made 3, even if he got his 6th technical foul for celebrating after muscling in the lay-up - it's the players who are committing the fouls. Sure, some of the contact could be let go, but there are a lot of fouls that are obvious, too. And, why are there so many blatant fouls? Well ... I'm glad you asked.

It's the coaches and commentators. I'm lumping them together because I think they are jointly (though not necessarily equally) responsible for helping the players think that they should be fouling extra in the playoffs. I'm not sure when the "no lay-ups" idea started to pick up steam, but the scope has been widened in recent year to include "no fast breaks". If you're going to foul Dwight Howard every time he gets close to the basket, he's going to march to the FT line quite a bit. But, it certainly doesn't stop there. West hammered Pietrus on a baseline drive to the basket today in the game 4 victory by the Magic. LeBron James took almost 20 FTs because the Magic didn't want him getting to the rim and dunking. Rashard Lewis reached in, Pietrus slid in front and picked up blocking fouls, etc. But, this type of behavior is nothing new. What is relatively new is fouling to prevent fast breaks. Rather than try to play defense in open court situations, players have started to look for opportunities to commit fouls to stop the play to make the other team take it out of bounds if the defense is at any disadvantage. Phil Jackson thought Dante Jones tripping Kobe Bryant was unsportsmanlike. Well, I tend to agree, but I also think it's unsportsmanlike to grab LeBron or Kobe at half court to prevent him from being able to go one on one at another defender as he approaches the basket on a break.

Certainly, there have been fouls called that shouldn't have been. Dwight Howard's 6th foul in game 3 comes to mind. He had a clean block of LeBron and the ref just blew the call. Howard was whistled for another foul today when LeBron bounced off him and missed a fallaway. It looked like Howard was in legal guarding position to me. I'm sure that if I reviewed the tapes of the other games - fortunately, I don't have them, so I won't be doing that - I would find numerous other phantom fouls. But, for every phantom foul, I could probably find at least two more that could have been called ... the Jones trip of Kobe comes to mind right off the bat.

*****

Hyperbole?
Moving on to other topics, I've blasted Jay Mariotti a little bit before, but I couldn't let this gem (from Around the Horn today) slide: "Here's the disparity, 58-40 rebounding, Denver all over the boards led by "Birdman" Anderson, in my opinion the best player on the court ..." Really Jay? Chris Anderson is the best player on the court in the Lakers v. Nuggets series? Hmmm. Chris Anderson has been effective and, frankly, I don't understand why more players don't play like he does. He's puts his length and athleticism to good use by being active rebounding, blocking shots in help defense, and getting easy baskets by crashing the boards and cutting to the basket. He seems to know his limitations - although he did throw up a three-pointer yesterday - and does a good job playing to his strengths and staying away from his weaknesses. You don't often see him pulling down defensive rebounds and leading the break a la Magic Johnson. Anderson's play reminds me a lot of the way Tyson Chandler played last year on a Hornets team that made a strong playoff run. But, while Anderson has been relatively productive, he's only been in double digits in scoring once in the four playoff games against the Lakers. And, while he pulled down 14 rebounds in game 4, he accumulated a total of just 16 in the first three games of the series. He's also averaging 2 blocks while playing approximately half the minutes against Los Angeles. Kobe is the best player on the court when those teams collide. Chauncey Billups is also very good. Carmelo Anthony, Pau Gasol, Nene, etc.

Where does the league stand?
The NBA rules allow teams to foul intentionally to prevent teams from attempting three-pointers to tie games. The Lakers did this in game 1 against the Nuggets. But, the NBA rules also allow teams to advance the ball by using a time out. The Cavs did this at the end of game 2, which helped them pull out a victory to tie the series at 1-1. I don't get it. While the advancing the ball rule allows teams better opportunities to come back in late game situations, intentional fouls not being called intentional allows teams to preserve leads late by making the game a FT contest and draining the clock. Advancing the ball adds excitement ... intentional fouls drain the energy out of games. Personally, I would have the rules be exactly opposite. Intentional fouls would be called intentional fouls, which would result in teams at least having to be more clever in the way they foul, although if I were really in charge, the penalty for regular fouls would be more severe, so teams would not want to foul. But, I digress. I would also not allow teams to advance the ball. While it is certainly more difficult to score from 94 feet away than from 40 feet away, if the other team takes the lead with 2 seconds left, too bad. Figure out a way to get someone a decent look at the basket. We won a game in HS my junior year (I don't remember exactly what my role in the play was, but it wasn't a big one) on a last second, full-court play our coach drew up during a time out. I think we beat NM-Highlands on a play when I was at Mines on a full-court play with just a couple seconds on the clock as well. Valpo. Duke-Kentucky. Pro players hit crazy shots all the time at the ends of quarters, there is no reason to give teams an unfair advantage by allowing them to advance the ball. If a football team scores a TD with less than two minutes left, the other team doesn't automatically get to advance the ball if they call a time out. That would be ridiculous. The team that scored the TD kicks off from the same spot you kick-off from if you score at any point in the game (assuming there aren't any penalties). The only case I can think of for advancing the ball is to "add excitement" ... but, if that's the case, why does the league allow the intentional fouling?