Have you been enjoying the NBA playoffs so far? Yes! Of course you have! It’s the best time for the best league for the best sport. Real stakes, real competition, real intensity – what could be better?
With each passing year, the chasm between the postseason and the regular season grows. We have now gotten to the point where the two seasons bear only a passing resemblance to each other. Why is that?
Obviously, playoff games should be better than regular season games – the remaining teams are better, nobody is tanking (unless you’re the Miami Heat in Game 4), and the games matter more. It’s not rocket science. But these games don’t happen in a vacuum. There is a set of neutral observers in charge of administering the rules, and their decisions have more to do with this chasm than people are perhaps willing to admit.
Officiating a regular season basketball game seems to have no relationship whatsoever with what we see in the postseason. This is a good thing. Do not mistake this as criticism – not entirely. Playoff games should be decided on the floor by the players, many of whom are capable of the most breathtaking displays of skill and athleticism. But the level of physicality we see in an NBA playoff game is nowhere near what we see in a typical December contest.
Imagine if regular season basketball was this physical. Withstanding 82 games is nearly impossible as it is. This level of intensity is not sustainable. I like the fact that the NBA has a demarcation point between the opening act and the headliner, and that the officials treat it as such.
There is one unfortunate side effect, however. The player-to-official complaining has reached new levels of hysteria.
Every call or non-call is now greeted with a five-minute sidebar, screaming match, eye roll, or perplexed glare (at minimum). The players have no idea what constitutes a foul right now. I can’t say I blame them. They’ve spent the season with one kind of officiating style, and now they have to adjust on the fly to a more collision-oriented approach to basketball.
Was Tim Hardaway Jr. fouled by Josh Hart on a potential game-winning 3-pointer? Of course he was. That’s a foul in any situation in any game at any level. But that play wouldn’t have even cracked the top 10 most obvious “this would’ve been called in December” plays that game. Bodies are flying around constantly. By the time you get to the end of a game like that, the referees, coaches, and players are so numb to the complaints, so hoarse from the shouting, that the game just happens and the whistles are nowhere to be found.
Perhaps this will smooth itself out by the next round and we’ll get to a point by the conference finals where the games are physical, the competition is intense, and the expectations are clear. That probably won’t do anything to stop the arguing, though.
And 1’s:
• The Damian Lillard news is…I mean…what is there even to say? Lillard is one of the signature stars of this era – one of the most exciting players to ever lace it up and one of the best leaders in all of sports. He is the kind of player you tell your kids “See that guy? That’s how you go about your business.” Lillard encapsulates everything we love about basketball. It will be a tall task for him to recover from this injury at his age, but I have no interest in counting him out. The sport is better when we all have our clocks set to Dame Time.
• Related: Has the clock run out on the Giannis era in Milwaukee? Everyone is eager to put his name in fake trades all around the NBA. It makes sense – the Bucks have no real way to improve their roster. This five-game series loss to the Indiana Pacers (with Tyrese Haliburton absolutely cooking them in the clincher) is the kind of loss that requires major soul searching. But if you’ve ever read Mirin Fader’s book about Giannis, you know that this isn’t a typical player-organization relationship. The Bucks treated the Antetokounmpos like family well before Giannis put on all the muscle and evolved into the league-dominating Greek Freak.
• Nikola Jokic is coaching the Denver Nuggets right now. He’s also doing all the stuff Nikola Jokic usually does on a basketball court. The players union should negotiate a salary increase – he’s making a ton of money, but he’s taking on additional tasks outside the scope of his agreed-upon contract. He got to take it easy in the Nuggets’ huge Game 5 win over the Clippers with a ho-hum triple double as Jamal Murray and Russell Westbrook shouldered the scoring load.
• It’s not just the officials who completely change their job descriptions in April and May. Jimmy Butler’s playoff heroics are honestly kind of terrifying at this point. We shouldn’t call it “flipping the switch” anymore. It’s now “Butlering.” “Yeah, I know Jake really screwed around in English class all year, but you know he’ll Butler that final essay.”
• Tom Thibodeau has forgotten more about basketball than I’ll ever know. But sometimes, I’ll watch this Knicks team and wonder what exactly is going on there. The Detroit Pistons are theoretically at least a year away from doing real playoff damage, but the Knicks can’t shake them, despite having four of the five best players in the series and loads more playoff experience. The great Tom Ziller speculated in his newsletter “Good Morning It’s Basketball” whether the Knicks could outdo the Nuggets and Grizzlies and dismiss their coach in the middle of a playoff series.
