CLEVELAND, Ohio — Cavs coach Kenny Atkinson is (whistle) trying to coach a basketball game (whistle), but its rule makers are obsessed with perfection. Cleveland leads 89-88 with 9:36 to play, and this is supposed to be where NBA action peaks.
The world’s best athletes fight for a win in the balance. Coaches like Atkinson deploy their deepest strategic wrinkles. Skill, size, smarts, back and forth for the next nine minutes.
But first (whistle), the foul on Cavs center Tristan Thompson requires another look. Thompson’s elbow against Spurs forward Julian Champagnie appeared incidental, but the NBA encourages officials to double-check possible flagrant fouls.
So instead of competing, we stop the game to re-interpret its rules. Matter of fact, for the fourth time in eight game minutes — which feel like 80 real ones — we cut away from Cleveland’s eventual 124-116 win over the Spurs so we can watch referees stare at a computer monitor, then watch several replays ourselves.
Frankly, Atkinson’s seen enough.
“I sympathize with you guys,” Atkinson said. “I sympathize with the fans, like the reviews and the challenges. I prefer the game flowed more. And I thought we were getting that way with the NBA where we’re shortening the games, and it’s got to go. But every review you’re sitting there for seems like forever. It just kills it for the crowd, it kills it for the players.
“However they can limit those reviews, including the challenges, I’m voting yes. The game’s gotta flow better. There’s too much stoppage, in my opinion.”
Amen, pastor Play On. The last thing this sport needs is another reason to stop the clock. Think about it: We already give each team seven timeouts, plus media timeouts, plus whatever time we sacrifice watching free throw contests that define late-game scenarios.
Why waste more precious moments?
When the NBA introduced replay assistance in 2002, it harbored pure intentions. Buzzer beaters are hard to judge, the thinking went. Referees could use help determining whether a game-winning shot should count. Fair enough.
Rules are important, and results should be honest.
But in the three decades since, we have lost the plot on policing this sport. Today, [league rules](https://official.nba.com/rule-no-13-instant-replay/) denote 15 distinct triggers of replay review, plus a 3,000-word section on “reviewable matters.” These are somehow both separate from coach’s challenge rules, which allow teams to initiate re-judgement of decisions they disagree with. And this all comes _after_ the league scaled back replay capability in 2021 because of concerns about game flow.
Are you exhausted yet? Or maybe just bored?
Can’t blame anybody who preferred watching March Madness (which has its own stoppage flaws) over the hometown team Thursday night. On one channel, Alabama guard (and former Ohio Bobcat) Mark Sears made 10 3-pointers. On the other, San Antonio interim coach Mitch Johnson used two challenges and benefitted from another review over a four-minute span. Replays, free throws, rinse, repeat.
I don’t blame Johnson for using the tools at hand to help his team. As Cavs guard Donovan Mitchell said postgame, “Sometimes it’s me getting that call. I’m indifferent about it.”
But when said tools “stop the game,” as Mitchell also uttered, I wonder how much they’re fixing anything. In a rhythm-based sport, stoppages alter game arcs. Cavs big man Jarrett Allen described playing in a “flow state” during his 19-point fourth quarter. Call it artsy fartsy, but hoops people assign power to the sport’s energies.
Rhythm, flow, momentum, basketball gods — all important in NBA circles. All easily disrupted by one referee’s trip to the scorer’s table.
“I think we should trust the refs to make the right call,” Allen said. “I mean, what, 95% of their calls are right? So just trust them at the end of the day.”
Actually, a 2015 _Boston Globe_ story counted 86% of calls correct after researching the NBA’s Last Two Minute reports. Not ideal, but still higher than Mitchell’s free throw percentage (82.4%). Meanwhile, the 14% refs get wrong is lower than 76ers center Andre Drummond’s 3-point percentage this season (15%). And this fun with numbers puts all these replays in a different perspective.
If we apply _The Globe’s_ late-game math to Thursday’s four quarters, then Cavs-Spurs (34 total fouls) featured about five incorrect calls. Now compare that with four long, rhythm-killing reviews, all of which changed calls (rarely the case). And I’ll be darned: We still left a bad call behind.
What can be done? Well, the NBA could add more reviews in pursuit of an unattainable referee utopia. Or it could listen to Atkinson, accept human error and inject its sport with more of the excitement it was designed to produce.
Late-game drama, massive crowd pops, clutch jumpers back and forth! All are within the league’s grasp as soon as it admits that perfect is the enemy of a good product.
As things stand, players are too often stuck standing around while refs leaf through letters of the rule book. Spectators suffer. Coaches complain.
Atkinson wanted to discuss his team’s whistle, I mean win, on Thursday, but the rule makers interrupted him all evening. So by game’s end, the Cavs coach offered his rebuttal.
“You coach in flow (state) too, right?” Atkinson said. “And then all of a sudden, it just stops, and it’s hard to get going again. And listen, especially our home crowd, how important it is. It’s like, man, they stop, and then it takes everybody a while to get revved up again. I just wish we’d limit it. I vote for (fewer) stoppages, no challenges, just more flow to the game. I think it would be a better product.”