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I have never heard of this before. So, I went and looked it up in the Officials Manual. I can only find two relevant statements.
302. (page 47) All officials should maintain the semblance of a wide triangle coverage of the court and fundamentally they should be moving into the proper positions each time there is a change in possession of the ball (but should never turn their backs to the ball). The Center or Trail official, who has a five-second closely-guarded count in the frontcourt, must step onto the court and go with the dribbler even toward the other side official's area of responsibility, showing that he/she still has the initial count and that the offensive player is still closely-guarded.
Diagram 28 (page 50) Each official has an area of primary coverage for fouls and violations on and off the ball in that area. When ball is not in primary area, take all players in your area. Dual coverage is indicated. Officials must always be aware of location of ball, players and other officials.
(BTW, who wrote that caption? Take a grammar course, please!)
The first could certainly be understood to say that the Lead is not to have a closely-guarded count. However, the second would imply that he does.
I guess you should follow what your assignor says. I am grateful to the board for teaching me something new today!
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