The Los Angeles Clippers lost to the Milwaukee Bucks on Wednesday night, 129-124. That probably made Clippers coach Doc Rivers mad, because he is a competitive person, I imagine. What we know made him mad was the new NBA coach’s challenge rule, which he has sworn off.
Rivers lost his second challenge of the season after Lou Williams was called for an offensive foul in the fourth quarter for driving at Eric Bledsoe. Bledsoe whipped his head back as if to intimate that there had been serious contact, though watching it back, it sure doesn’t look like Williams got anywhere near him. The refs called Williams for an offensive foul.
Rivers challenged, the Staples Center crowd went nuts watching replay appearing to show no contact and then … the refs upheld the call.
You can watch the play here:
I mean, it’s not very close.
“That was awful,” Rivers said afterward. “It was. They should’ve overturned it. That’s why I hate the rule. Nobody wants to be wrong. Let me just say that. You have to overturn that. Unless Bledsoe fouled Lou with his face, there was no foul on that play.”
It’s a ridiculous call, a ridiculous confirmation, but it also shows that we’re quickly at risk of losing the benefits that come from video review.
In the NBA, coaches can only challenge once per game, and are charged a timeout for doing so, regardless of success. But they can challenge foul calls, which in the NBA are basically judgment calls. NBA officials aren’t going to want to admit they’re wrong on a judgment call, and will look for ways to confirm.
Early stats bear that out: NBA coaches have had a 36% success rate on challenges this season. On offensive calls challenged, it’s 23%. Honestly, I’m surprised it’s even that high.
When it comes to the NBA, when even incidental, slight contact can be judged to be a foul, video review could find a foul almost any time. Players fish for contact, and on almost every play, it happens. These are large men!
This is at the heart of Rivers’ point, I think. As he said, “That’s why I hate the rule. Nobody wants to be wrong.”
Refs don’t want to be shown up as having made the wrong decision, and with high definition replays from however many angles, odds are they can find some sort of contact on replay. Enough contact to warrant a foul? Who’s to say?
We’re watching video replay devolve in other sports. In soccer, especially, VAR (video assistant referee) has turned the game in the penalty box into a high definition-camera assisted forensic study. Any goal is meticulously combed over, and if the ball inadvertently touches someone’s fingernail, they’ll call it back for hand ball.
It’s a call that they never would have made in a million years before VAR, but now there’s VAR, and so a global audience of soccer fans now spends a good part of big matches staring frame by frame, squinting at the television.
The NBA doesn’t have to go this route. Refs already could look at replay to see who last touched a ball before it went out, or if a player’s foot was on the 3-point line. They had it right. Leave it at that.
I understand wanting to get calls right, but in this case, this is a rule that doesn’t make sense for this league. It slows the game down, and refs will want to justify their actions anyway. Just forget it.
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