Late Game Fouling

[M&M Guy]

Originally Posted by deecee

M&M in btaylors defense a lot of what I have heard other officials say, like a foul at the beginning..., I have also seen them not practice. I think that we have a lot of officiating cliches that are thrown around as "common" knowledge and practice when in reality they are just platitudes that dont really carry much weight.

I do, however, believe that you do what you say simply by the voracity with which you defend your points. I could be wrong but I doubt it.

Voracity? Who are you and what have you done with mbyron?

I do believe, as a total group, we officials do things that are lazy. There are many of us that call that high dribble as a carry, not because it's correct, but because it's the easy call to make - no one will argue it. Some of us will still make the "over-the-back" foul call. Some of us will guess on foul calls at the end of a close game because that's what the other team is trying to do.

I have yet to see anyone show a memo, case play, rule, POE, interp, something scribbled on a napkin, whatever, to show that we should call a foul just because we know the other team wants to commit one. Doing that is the easy way out. I'm not a perfect official, and I've done that before. But the more I work, the more I appreciate that taking the easy way out isn't what is best for the players. They work hard to learn how to dribble, pass, shoot, defend, etc. the right way; I should do the same.