[ChuckElias]

Originally posted by tomegun
Chuck, I would have to disagree.

You would disagree that every violation interrupts the game? I'm not sure how you could argue against that. . .

We are there to make calls that need to be made.

I agree. And I also understand that you are using "game interrupters" to mean "calls that don't need to be made".

If we do that then we aren't interrupting the game as far as I'm concerned, we are doing our job.

We are doing our job by interrupting the game at an appropriate time. This is just semantics, ok? I completely understand your point. But my point is the term is misleading on the face of it. The problem is that officials with less experience might hear it and say, "Jeez, I better not call handchecks, b/c I'm just interrupting the game".

Keep in mind, I'm by no means the originator of this or almost any other term.

I completely understand that. I hope you will keep in mind that my comments are not directed at you personally in any way. I'm not saying you (or anybody) is a bad ref for using the terminology. I didn't mean it to come across that way at all. I'm just pointing out what I see as a problem with the terminology itself.

I guess I made some of my comments overlap and it didn't make good sense. There are too many "and one" plays. On a totally different note, there are times when a player has began their shooting motion and a foul is called on the floor.

Nah, I got your point, I was just being persnickety. I actually agree with both your points. I think people call the foul "before the shot" too often. On the other side, sometimes it's hard to hold off on the foul call b/c you don't know if it's really going to affect the shot or not and if you wait, the play's over. So sometimes the "and one" whistle comes a little too early; but I can understand that to a certain degree. It's a hard thing to balance patience with a "too-late" whistle.

Do you have any other situations where contact would always be a foul? This is pretty good.

I can't think of any other ones right off the top of my head. Even the ones that Dan has listed, I can see passing on if the contact was slight. We see the pass/crash get no-called a lot (especially if the passer almost gets around the crash, so that the contact is on the defender's shoulder instead of chest), even at higher levels; and soft screens above the 3-point arc don't always give a big advantage. I can see why somebody might not call them.