[tomegun]

Originally Posted by blindzebra

It's better to think of it as finding and knowing the defense.

As officials we need to know the status of all defenders in our primary, otherwise we get surprised by contact...when that happens a lot of the time good defense gets penalized.

Ref the defense, if taken literally, can cause a tunnel-vision on the defender and that can be just as bad as not knowing if the defender has LGP.

So what does all that mean?

Well, it's simple...we need to find the defense, know the status of the ball (pivot foot, dribble), see through the play and attempt to pick up off-ball match-ups beyond the ball (screens, secondary defenders).

Wow, I said the same thing almost a year ago, called it "reffing the matchup" and was criticized a ton. But, this is exactly correct.