Are the NBA playoffs too physical? Have the referees actually lost control? Here is what the data say

On Monday AS The Oklahoma City Thunder prepared to open its Western Conference Finals series against the visiting Minnesota Timberwolves. The head coach Mark Daignault was sitting at a table where reporters were confronted and dealt with one of the consequences of the playoffs with a question.

The acting. Or the perceived lack of it.

The specific query focused on Timberwolves head coach Chris Finch and OB Finch could try to influence the fortresses to the media through his comments.

Finch apparently done this after a matchup between the two teams in the regular season and said after a win against thunder in February: “It is so frustrating to play this team because they double. [Gilgeous-Alexander]. It is a very frustrating thing and it takes a lot of spiritual hardness to play through it. “

Has Daigneuch prepared for potential playing? Did he prepare his team?

Daignault was dull in his answer.

“We are primarily preparing the team for the games,” said Daigneult. “I said this in the Denver series because it also appeared there – teams, players, coaches will use the media to try to influence the pipe as a competitive advantage. The margins are thin in the playoffs. Everyone is looking for an advantage. Some teams will go.

Daignault added: “If they are influenced by anything that someone in the media says, they shouldn't work in the final of the Western Conference.”

The annual discourse on the acting – and especially in the off -season – is not new. What is new this season is his intensity, from coaches who complain to discrepancies, to players who ask themselves whether the league has lost control.

From his position as Vice President of the NBA for referee development and training, Monty McCutchen evaluates such comments from coaches and players, regardless of whether he was made public or private. And he tries to recognize between the sensitive balance of potential play art – the influence of the office – and valid concerns.

“It is my job to understand when the symptoms are valid,” McCutchen told ESPN. “What I cannot do and cannot do is to influence a series. If coaches are right, I feel comfortable in my own skin to admit it, and then it is my job to transfer it to the group.”

McCutchen made it clear that there is nothing at the end of the league, which indicates that these playoffs are more physical or, unlike in previous years, are served.

“For me it feels for the course par,” said McCutchen. “It feels very similar. And our analysis shows that it is similar in recent years.”

McCutchen says there was no shift in office – that no mandate was granted.

“There is no light switch that we turn on from a management or league point of view that says that we make the playoffs absolutely physical,” he said.

Lying on Court, Boston Celtics star Jaylen Brown banged in pain and held his left hand. His teammates gathered around him.

It was the second quarter of Game 3 of the first round of the Celtics against the Orlando Magic, and Brown had just ran against Magic Guard Cole Anthony.

When Brown tried to rise for a shot, Anthony pulled him to the ground. Brown landed hard and loosened his left index finger.

Anthony was called for an open foul, the third against magic in so many games. The first injured in game 1 the right wrist of the Celtics star Jayson Tatum. The second in game 2 split the forehead of the big Porzingis mankristaps.

After game 3, Brown, who was already injuring a knee injury.

“It could break out a fight or something because it starts not even being basketball, and the referees don't check their surroundings,” said the NBA final 2024 MVP.

But in reality teams go more, no less on the free -wing line.

Keep in mind that the free throw quota of a team is the percentage of the recordings that lead to free -throw attempts.

The rate of this season was 24.3%. In the post-season, this number has increased to 26.9%, the greatest increase between the regular season and the playoffs since 2012-13.

“There is no doubt that the playoffs are more intense,” said McCutchen, “and I think that we 'intensive' and 'physicality' treat as synonyms when there is a nuance. Certainly the intensity can do physicality, and I would not deny that, but I think the intensity of the playoffs is so different.”

McCutchen added that in the playoffs the familiarity of the teams with their opponents can lead to increased physicality. You are looking intensely. They often adapt.

“If you know where people are, everything gets closer to this feeling of familiarity,” he said.

Despite the statistics, the narrative remains.

After the Golden State Warriors defeated the Minnesota Timberwolves in game 1 of the Western Conference Semis, Finch was talking again.

“We will surely try to take justice in hand whenever we can – I think this is the nature of a physical sport – but for the same reason, my God, you should see some of these clips,” he said. “They look like they are waking up and pulling linemen out there who only make shots on Rudy [Gobert]. “

Warriors trainer Steve Kerr in turn did not hold back.

“They were with bearkeepers Steph and would have called six fouls, but the league found the physicality in the playoffs,” he said. “[Finch] I talked about it last week, just the general physicality. For me it is crazy out there, what happens.

“I also got my symptoms. Trust me. We all do it, and that's how it works in the playoffs. We look at the tape, we see all fouls on them that are not called. You can see the tape, you can see all of us that have not been mentioned. It is a physical game.”

“Referee is always Easy behind innovation, “said McCutchen,” because we see something and then have to become what we see. “

In 2023, the officials had recognized a growing trend: offensive players drove from the wing towards the free sausage line, and they often drove into the outdoor shoulder of the defensive player, who ran in parallel to them, creating contacts and putting referees under pressure to describe a foul.

“As soon as we came back from the Christmas break,” said McCutchen, “we began to develop a playlist of 30 or 40, in which insulting players only came into the foul by driving to their outdoor shoulder and then picking up the ball and looking as if they were out of balance.”

The list of games grew to around 50 by January 2024 and spread to civil servants in the league. In mid -February, the officials began to adapt. “With regard to the parallel games of straight linen, we really have more careless,” said McCutchen, “I would say out of offensive players.

And in mid -April of 2024 Silver noticed the change.

“It was a focus on the name of the league,” said Silver at a press conference of the NBA Board of Governor. “We were transparent with our teams. Everyone can see what happens on the floor and make their own judgments about the specified calls.

The free throws per game per game dropped every month in the 2023-24 season, starting from 23.2 in November to 19.7 in March, which made the first time since 2005 to 2006 that the free throwing per game fell over the course of four months.

On April 9, 2024, the Celtics was the first team in the NBA history, which in one game did not try free throws in the zero free throws. In the same game, the Bucks and Celtics have together for two free attempts, the least in a game in NBA history.

This special change led to the 2024 off -season, in which the teams had an average of 20.3 free throwing attempts, very few in a post -season of all time. (The previous ones were 21.4 in 1973-74)

This season, the teams had an average of 21.7 free throwing attempts per game, the fewest in one season in NBA history. However, the teams also had 37.6 3 points per game, most of them in a season in NBA history. In other words, the teams start more than ever from Deep, which leads to fewer contact options in the track. But McCutchen said that the change compared to last season has behaved.

“What we find is this balance between skills and legal physicality,” he said. “And we have certainly made this conscious decision in the past 18 months [spot] First.”

After 25 years of NBA games, McCutchen often looks games from home, or sometimes when Kane Fitzgerald (Vice President of the Referee operations of the league) needs a break in the Liga Replicas Center in Secaucus, New Jersey.

“I watch the games with an intense eye,” he said.

He takes notes. He examines how referee show growth.

He also takes news and telephone calls from teams.

“When the team calls me and they say: 'Hello, I want to talk about it tonight,' I say, 'glad to do that. Do you want me to bring the other team into the management so that we can have this discussion?' Now they often don't want to have this conversation at this time, “said McCutchen.

“And that is also fair. Every e -mail, everything that corresponds to the playoffs is cut and copied and installed in an e -mail to the opposing team and says: 'In accordance with our transparency protocols, there is no lobby work with which we can have a team about someone else.

“Each team differs in the way they do. And we cannot have this imbalance at this time of year. And I am very strict because I believe in fairness. I think it is the core value of the competition.”

If a team of clips, who wants to be checked, McCutchen said that he did not forward them to the reigning crew that works the next game in this series and does not indicate to adapt her acting.

“We don't get our foot on the way,” said McCutchen. “We have standards for which we consider NBA referees. If these people do not meet these standards, these people will not be held accountable. But I do not call crews in advance. This is very unethical. My job is to improve. If we have conversations between rounds if necessary, we try to do this type of thing if necessary.

“But I don't put my foot on the scale in a series. Teams don't always believe that.”

When McCutchen's statements were shared to an NBA trainer who was granted anonymity to speak freely, he said that everything seemed fair. “I think they are trying to do their best to do the job and it's a brutal job,” he said. “It is really very, very difficult.”

The pressure on the league to call the games was never higher, the coach said.

“So you see more and more repetitions that have been added year after year. The league desperately tried to do everything in a sport in which it is impossible to do so.

“But I'll repeat: I think you have a really, really hard job.” Br/]