Officiating to the score vs. officiating the game?

[FlasherZ]

Originally Posted by MechanicGuy

Game management is very real and very important. "Keeping the game close" is an entirely different accusation though. If a game is out of hand, I'm not putting marginal fouls on the outmanned team, and I'm not going to miss anything committed by the superior side.

In these cases, I definitely agree with you.

In this game, it was the opposite - the crew suddenly started calling more fouls (8 in 4 minutes) on the leading team without an material change in game strategy or play (definitely no "keep-away"), while the visiting team saw nearly no fouls despite stepped up aggressiveness on defense (to close its deficit), which usually tends to generate more fouls on the trailing team. With that said, the purpose of the post was not to condemn or argue this one particular game - in the end, the team that played better did win.

I aimed to ask whether this is in anyone's mind as they look at a game. Perhaps something like "the first 2 1/2 quarters were tight, then one team started pulling ahead, so I need to look where one team might have been given too much leeway." Thank you all for your expressed opinions - I think I've heard that no one here feels a sense to "call to the score" except in extreme blow-out cases. Perhaps there's something subliminal or psychological to it, who knows?