Up and Under Move

[Back In The Saddle]

Originally Posted by Jurassic Referee

Fair and accurate, BITS. It's exactly the same concept as an airborne shooter. The defender can't move up and under him legally either after he's left his feet.

I'm still puzzling over why exactly there should be a difference between a dribbler driving to the basket and the defender jumping forward and the driver contacting him in the air; and this up and under move. However, I note with interest:

"A dribbler shall not charge into nor contact an opponent in his/her path nor attempt to dribble between two opponents or between an opponent and a boundary, unless the space is such as to provide a reasonable chance for him or her to go through without contact. If a dribbler, without contact, sufficiently passes an opponent to have head and shoulders in advance of that opponent, the greater responsibility for subsequent contact is on the opponent. If a dribbler in his/her progress is moving in a straight-line path, he/she may not be crowded out of that path, but if an opponent is able to legally obtain a defensive position in that path, the dribbler must avoid contact by changing direction or ending his/her dribble. The dribbler should not be permitted additional rights in executing a jump try for goal, pivoting, feinting or in starting a dribble."

The gist of the first half of that seems to be that the dribbler must avoid situations where he/she is very likely to create contact because the defense has obviously cut off a particular path. If the dribbler puts him/herself in a position where he/she cannot reasonably be expected to succeed, the greater responsibility for the contact is on the dribbler. And in the case of the dribbler simply pivoting so that the airborne defender must land on him/her, it would seem to meet the gist of the rule. And the final sentence certainly brings home the point that this feinting and pivoting doesn't earn him/her any extra protection.

But if rather than pivoting under the guard, the dribbler jumped to attempt a shot, even if he/she jumped forward as far as he/she pivoted in the other scenario, and there was contact between the guard, who is flying toward the shooter, and the shooter, we've got a very definite foul on the defense because his movement is toward the shooter at the time of contact.

I can't seem to reconcile these two very similar situations.