On a violation, when to go get it, when not to?
 

Two man game, I'm trail. Offensive player on the wing opposite from me drives to the hoop. As he gets into the middle of the paint he grabs the ball as if to start a shot, but then seems to lose control of the ball, grabs the ball again and starts another dribble on his way out of the paint. I'm waiting for the lead to call a double-dribble violation but it's not coming. I conclude he must have been screened by some of the other big bodies in the lane and it seemed blatant enough to me, so after a second I make the call.

Right after my whistle, my partner comes up to me and asks me if I saw the defender touch the ball causing the offensive player to lose control, thereby making his next dribble legal. I had not seen that so we went with an inadvertent whistle and returned the ball to the offensive team. I think it was the correct thing to do to get the call right and no issues from anyone.

But while I'm glad we got the call right, I'm not happy about my role in it. Should I have left it alone and assumed my partner had a good view? When do you "go and get it" particularly in an area where both the L and T have joint responsibility? I'm very careful about calling outside my area, but at the time this seemed like an obvious violation. But I was just wrong.

I am more likely to help out in 2-man than in 3-man. But for your particular play here is what got you in trouble:

I would say that you yourself did not have as clean of a look as you thought you did.

But in the end, not a big deal. A lesson learned.

I called an double-dribble in front of my partner in a Rec game the other night. When I talked to him about it he said the player had got fouled but he hadn't whistled it. He should have called a foul, but also, I guess I should have left it alone and let him deal with any repercussions.

Nothing wrong with making that call in the middle of the lane from trail, if you're certain what you saw. But apparently you weren't?