Dribbler cuts in front of defender

[JRutledge]

Originally posted by Jurassic Referee


In my experience,the play that you are describing above very rarely has parallel,STRAIGHT LINE paths,which is the situation that JeffRef described originally.The defender usually alters their path while playing defense,or is approaching the dribbler at an angle(even if it is slight),which bring the "guarding" principles into play over the "screening" principles.

If you have to go to that extreme to explain the situation to justify how good of a call this is, then you need to leave it alone. Because we are making distictions between straight lines and altered paths. So how much of an altered path are we going to consider there to be for us not to call a PC Foul on the dribbler? So when I call a foul, am I going to draw a line from point A to point B to determine if the defenders path was straight or not? I knew that Geometry class would come in hand someday.

I really do not mean to sound coy, but that seems like splitting hairs to me. You know darn well the coach is not trying to suggest the difference between a straight line or an altered path. He is basically saying that a dribbler, going to the basket is not and has not bee called for a foul, not in the process of shooting, but slows down and gets run over by the defender who did not get "two steps" to stop or alter his path.

Good, now you gave me more ammo to not call this at all. I will just say that the defender altered his path. Just like in 3 seconds, "his foot was not on the line coach."

Peace