Defender trying to take a charge starting to fall before contact

[BryanV21]

Originally Posted by Scrapper1

Falling backwards isn't part of the verticality rule, but it also doesn't violate the verticality rule. The rules for maintaining a legal guarding position say that a player is allowed to move backwards after establishing that legal position. Falling back is obviously moving backwards, so this is legal.

Whether you should reward it by calling the PC foul is another question. But I don't want people to start thinking that moving backwards is necessarily illegal.

Nowhere in the rule defining verticality does it say anything about leaving the defender's vertical space. When you say "falling back", that certainly implies leaving a player's vertical space. Thus... not verticality.

Again, say it's legal in terms of LGP, and thus a legal move... fine. But unless you can point to a case play or interpretation from NFHS, then I don't see how it can be called as part of verticality.