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I kinda disagree with making a decision to call it tighter, because if you know the pressure and intensity is escalating as the season goes on, you should be calling things early and often. There shouldn't be a noticable ramping up since you should have set the tone, then if appropriate backed off. Even if you have to go back to the original tone, you at least established it as the norm, rather than an exception.
That said, I can't call a game much tighter at one point than another unless I've done what I did before. I fall into the "I didn't call it on that end, so let it go on this end, next time I'll call it" trap, or the "I didn't call that all game, so I can't call it now" trap, or the "I don't want to call the really ticky-tack stuff right off the bat, so I'll wait for a little harder one, then start calling the ticky tack stuff" trap. For some reason I can do it as a soccer ref, but as a basketball ref I can't. I can and will report slower, call more violations (different from fouls I guess), and adminster free throws slower. That takes the game out of the current rythmn (that sounds really bad, but you know what I mean), and let's everyone calm down during the more frequent stoppages and gives them a chance to "reset".
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