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Originally Posted by wildcatter
Has anyone ever seen a ref "fake" the jump ball? - I don't know whether this is legal, I see it happen in hockey on face-offs as well (where I know it can be encouraged).
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I couldn't think of a basketball referee ever faking a toss; there's no reason that comes to mind why one would want to.
In hockey, however, its not a fake that you are seeing. It's a response to the rules of the face-off. I'm being very general since my only experience is playing and that was many years ago, but essentially both players are required to keep their sticks on the ice until the puck is dropped. The way this is managed is the visiting team is required to place their stick on the ice and then the home player is required to do so within a limited time period. Typically the puck is dropped immediately after the home team complies with the rule. The "fake" comes in however, when the one player or the other lifts his/her stick prior to the puck being dropped (usually the visitor, as it is common to react to the opponent and not hte puck actually being released). If this happens such that the linesman can catch it before dropping the puck, he simply holds onto it and forces a reset, although this appears to be a "fake". Once this goes on some many times, the offending player is bounced from the face-off circle and replaced by a teammate with continued violations resulting in a delay of game penalty. Also of note is that if the puck is dropped, but the linesman feels a player violated, he can bring it back and start from scratch. Again this is pretty general from my playing days, but I've never heard of it being an acutal fake by the referee or linesman.