NBA Has a Consistency Problem with How Playoff Games Are Being Officiated

Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images

The NBA has undoubtedly displayed more physical basketball since the All-Star break. In March, the league acknowledged that new officiating focuses impacted the flood of scoring seen early in the season.

It’s fitting that this more rugged style of basketball eventually led us to another playoff series between the Indiana Pacers and New York Knicks. It suddenly feels like we’re back in the 1990s again, even though Reggie Miller, Rik Smits, Patrick Ewing and John Starks aren’t wearing the jerseys anymore.

The overwhelming majority of Monday’s Game 1—a 121-117 Knicks win—honored the tradition.

But with just over 12 seconds left in the fourth quarter and the Pacers down one, officials took the game out of the players’ hands.

With Tyrese Haliburton breaking slightly to the left from half court, Myles Turner set a run-of-the-mill screen against Haliburton’s defender, Donte DiVincenzo, outside the three-point line. DiVincenzo hit the deck like he ran into a 2×4, rather than the kind of screen you see dozens of times every game.

The sideline ref took the bait, called a moving screen and gave the ball back to the Knicks.

Bleacher Report @BleacherReportKnicks draw offensive foul on Turner to seal Game 1 win 👀 pic.twitter.com/agKCGML3J8

The Pacers challenged the call—it looked like more of a flop than a moving screen—but it was upheld. Making matters worse, Andrew Nembhard was called for an away-from-the-play foul before the ball was inbounded again. Brunson sank that free throw, then nailed two more after he was fouled to stop the clock on the next possession.

At that point, the game was essentially over. And the score held steady at 121-117.

That Pacers possession with 12 seconds to go could’ve been electric. Indiana likely would’ve held the ball for the last shot. A game-winner would’ve been a heck of a way to start the series. But we’ll never know how that possession would’ve played out thanks to a routine play being called differently than it typically is.

Therein lies perhaps the biggest issue with the NBA’s officiating adjustment. On balance, the more physical game is a better watch. It beats the constant foul-grifting and other trickery that was so common in the first half of the season.

However, it has turned a lot of games into rugby matches sporadically interrupted by whistles, especially in the playoffs.

Players have adapted to the rougher game, so everybody is understandably confused when those calls come. For several possessions in a row, there’s uncalled contact on nearly every touch. Then, suddenly, something like the moving screen call on Turner happens.

You can see it in just about every game right now, but it was especially bad in Madison Square Garden on Monday.

It wasn’t just the call. It was the situation in which it was made.

“The charge call on Turner was reprehensible,” The Ringer’s Bill Simmons posted. “Come on.”

Fox Sports’ Kevin Wildes added, “I’m pulling for the Knicks but that is a horrible call on Myles Turner.”

The Pacers understandably agreed.

Michael Scotto @MikeAScottoMyles Turner: “I think it’s best when the players decide the outcome of the game.”

“I think we’re all looking forward to the Last 2 Minute Report coming out. I think there were 2 controversial calls. The kick ball by Aaron Nesmith was not a kick ball. You clearly see on replay.” pic.twitter.com/zqiHuV7yrP

Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle took a slightly different approach, saying they didn’t expect calls in MSG but also added, “It would be nice if they laid off that one, but they didn’t.”

Now, we await the NBA’s Last Two Minute report. Will it admit a mistake or echo the in-game crew’s explanation about Turner moving?

Either way, the league’s officials have an impossible task. These are some of the biggest and fastest athletes in the world. Just about every possession features a bang-bang play that could draw some kind of call from the refs, especially since players have started playing more physically.

If the alternative is to go back to a bunch of unwarranted foul calls, unimpeded paths to the rim and exorbitant scoring totals, the current approach is preferable.

But if the NBA stays committed to the officiating adjustments it made midseason, the officials will have to find the balance that eliminates moments like Monday’s moving screen.

Relative to the way games have been played for months, that contact was nothing.