Quote:
Originally posted by Bart Tyson
Well Coach, we will have to agree to disagree. B1 has an obligation to stop or go around a screen. If the screen is legal then it does not matter how fast he is moving.
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You do not disagree with me, you disagree with the rule book Here is the book, word for word, 10-6-3-d.
"In cases of screens outside the visual field, the opponent may make inadvertent contact with the screener and if the opponent is running rapidly, the contact may be severe. Such a case is to be ruled as incidental contact provided the opponent stops or attempts to stop on contact and moves around the screen, and provided the screener is not displaced if he or she has the ball."
Because the screening contact rule allows for severe contact, it clearly recognizes that B1 cannot possibly come to an immediate stop as soon as B1 hits A2 when they never saw A2 (and A2 probably wanted it that way!). The rule anticipates and allows that a rapidly moving B1 will have a severe collision with a screener who positions themselves outside B1's visual field.
Physics will tell you that to have severe contact (contact that causes bodies to go flying) requires that a player move through someone. Now what matters by rule is what happens next. B1 stops (even by falling over A2), no foul. B1 bulls over A2 and continues defending A1, foul.
As the coach of the team that is supposedly punished by not giving B1 a foul, I am saying that I not only believe that this is the intent of a pretty straighforward rule, but that I agree that the rule should read and be enforced precisely in this way. As team A, we look for that contact because it removes that pesky, speedy B1 from the play and allows A1 to take a layup or drive and dish for A3, A4, or A5 to score. You blow the whistle and take that from A and you just gave an advantage to B. And you also give a good defender who is playing solid defense a foul that the player does not deserve.