Block/Player Control/No Call

[Jurassic Referee]

Originally Posted by Scrapper1

1) Why not? If the defender established an initial guarding position, then maintained that position by moving laterally, why can he not continue to move laterally into the airborne player's landing spot???? According to everything that I've seen in this thread, the defender hasn't done anything illegal. He's allowed to move laterally to maintain his guarding position.

2) So what really is the difference between moving laterally into the landing spot (which you're saying here is not legal) and moving backward into the landing spot (which you're saying is legal)?

1Either they're both legal or they're both illegal. And what I've been saying all along is that they're both illegal.

1) A defender can maintain LGP by moving laterally. But if that defender wants to establish a legal position in an airborne shooter's path, he had to be in that legal position directly in the path before the shooter went airborne. It's illegal to move laterally under aairborne opponent after that opponent went airborne. Rule 4-23-4(b)

2) I can find nothing in rule 4-23 or anywhere else that states that a guard with a legal position on the floor as mentioned in rule 4-23-4(b) can lose that legal position by moving straight backward in the direct path of the opponent before that opponent went airborne.

3) And that's where we disagree. One (moving laterally under an airborne opponent after that opponent went airborne) is illegal by rule. The other (moving straight backwards in a legal position in the direct path of an opponent before that opponent went airborne isn't illegal under any rule that I know of.