His left leg may be in the air, but he jumps off his right leg, so that's your necessary reference. He's not airborne until both feet are off the floor.

I stand corrected per NR's quotation. Thank you for keeping me in line!

Very close play indeed, but I feel strongly that this play MUST have a whistle. No-call on this would be incorrect. I do stick by my initial reaction of a block. :)

From the angle we get, I agree there should probably be a whistle. However, with the L standing right there, I have to defer.

I don't mean to ruin your day my friend, but I 100% agree with you......:eek:
It is plays like this one that make me wish all players wore those old LA Gear basketball shoes (Or should I say Karl Malone endorsed LA Gear "Catapult" basketball shoes) that had the blinker lights on the soles that blinked on when your foot was on the ground and blinked off when your foot was off the ground. Then it would be easy to determine if both feet were off the ground!!!

As Rockyroad said in an earlier post, I don't think this lead was focused on this play...watch his head when the shot goes up...me think he got lucky and deferred to no whistle...which I still think is correct.

We're making this too hard. Look at the video again, and stop it at the 4 second mark. The defender who is flattened establishes his legal guarding position there--he has left his man, the front of his torso is facing the opponent, he is between his opponent and the basket, and has both feet on the floor (time and distance are not a factor--there is no minimum time and distance, and there is no maximum time and distance). Simply because there is another defender between him and the opponent at the time does not negate his initial legal guarding position. From that point on he moves to maintain that position, which he may do either laterally or obliquely (in this case obliquely). Though the ball handler beats his primary defender, the other defender with a legal guarding position retains every privilege as if he were primary--he is still entitled to the spot. As stated earlier, the ball handler meets none of the requirements for not being the one who initiates contact (head and shoulders past the torso, etc.).

It was good defense, and should have resulted in a charge call. Defender got hosed.

Good point Snaq....and with that I stand corrected. By rule we have a charge.

Now, for what we can't see. It looks like the shooter jumped to the side of the defender, and what we can't tell from the video is the extent of the contact. It looks very possible that while there was some slight contact on the defender's shoulder, it wasn't hard enough to knock him down.
It's very possible that this play is B2 flopping to try to draw a call, tripping B1, who then knocks A1 down. B1's contact against A1 is so close to the ball going in the official lets it go (dead ball.)

All of this is, of course, not taking into account the possibility that the lead just messed up and was watching the ball, but it sure appears he was looking at the initial contact between A1 and B1 and passed on that.

The dead ball status doesn't matter if the contact is by or on an airborne shooter. Was A1 already back down to the floor? I don't think so.

It looked to me like he had landed prior to being contacted by B1, who had been beat on the play and tripped over B2 and into the shooter.

A question for the floor:

When close plays like this happen, and a charge is called, do the dissenters in the crowd somehow feel the offensive player is being picked on, or better phrased, has an entitlement over the defense?

1. They think the player has to be stationary to draw a charge.
2. They think you're blind.
3. They think you're cheating their team.

Rule of thumb: if the crowd thinks you kicked it, you probably got it right.:rolleyes: