[26 Year Gap]

Originally Posted by Texref

This got brought up in our meeting last night as we were talking about throw ins. We know it is illegal for the defense to reach through the boundary prior to the throw in being released (7-6-4 and 9-2-10). No issues there. The play in question is after a made basket when the offense throws a pass to another teammate who is also oob on the other side of the key. Can the defense reach through and deflect this pass or would this be a technical foul? I believe it is a smart and legal play by the defense since the ball was released by the thrower. Others disagree in saying that this is not released on the throw in pass. Nothing in case book that I could find, although I only looked in the rules referenced above and their related case plays.

Originally Posted by letemplay

So the defense would have to wait until they were sure the ball had broken the plane before reaching for it? How can they judge that (successfully)? Suppose the pass is not to an out of bounds teammate, but a cross court pass to an inbounds player in opposite corner? You are going to expect a defender, with his team down by one, not to reach for that ball? I'm not talking about the onball defender, but probably a secondary defender in a press setup somewhere closer to receiver. There would be a point somewhere in that pass that the ball crosses the plane, but probably hard for a player to know in heat of battle. If there is no out of bounds receiver on this play, we all would assume that at any point after release of ball the defense could legally reach for it, correct? I'm kinda playing devils advocate here, realizing the OP was referencing an obvious pass between two out of bounds teammates and the defender most likely even crosses the plane himself to grab the ball. Here I have the obvious T, but think we have to be careful regarding exactly where the pass is headed, and at what point it is touched.

Fixed it for ya! No charge. (Actually, I didn't change a thing from the original post).