I'm pretty sure a coach would know that there is legal contact in a basketball game, so they wouldn't need me to dumb it down like that.

But thanks for looking out.

Let me say it another way, 99% of the time I see it used, it's used as a sort of rebuttal against advantage/disadvantage concepts. As in, "You can't apply advantage, because a foul is a foul."

When I hear it from coaches, it's after I let incidental contact go uncalled. Maybe your experience is different, though. We're just explaining why some officials around here flinch when we hear the phrase.

Okay. So how would you react to a coach, or anybody else, that doesn't like off-ball foul calls?

And I don't mean that in a snarky way. I'm honestly asking how you'd phrase it.

Honestly I don't concern myself. It's not a conversation I'm going to have.

Me either.

Honest answer, the same way I react to a coach who starts whining for 3 seconds while the shots keep going up: I quietly recognize he isn't going to have much positive to offer in this game and adjust my internal expectations. If his comments become a distraction, or unsporting, I'll shut it down.

In the course of this game, I wouldn't bother addressing it other than shutting it down if it becomes necessary. If it's in a general discussion among friends (I have friends who coach) off the court, that's different.

If it's a cordial discussion during a break in action and he says something about the flow, I might simply respond that in my opinion, the flow of a game gets disrupted more by uncalled off-ball fouls. But this discussion would only happen with a coach who has already built a good rapport with me: and that's just not the sort of coach who would make such a complaint.

To answer the question: "Coach, I thought that foul needed to be called." Likely more than they're going to get, but it's not less.

"Coach, it was a foul"

Flow of the game?
 

I never complain about the "flow of the game". But, i do get upset when officials miss guys getting held trying to come off screens, or when guys are setting illegal screens off the ball. So, kudos to you for getting that.

I'm on the side of screw the flow, get it right.

Officials do not dictate the "flow" of the game. Players dictated the "flow" of the game.

MTD, Sr.

Depends on whose perspective you are looking from.

Players dictate the flow by the amount of illegal activity they choose to engage in.

Depends on whose perspective you are looking from.

Guess you need to decide whose perspective you are concerned with when discussing officiating and illegal contact.

When you figure that out you may be able to advance this conversation past 'cut & paste'.

Are you stuttering?

As an official, I hope it's the official's perspective you're concerned with. Otherwise, there are coaching forums all over the place where you may get a response more to your liking.

True, and it makes those statements undertstandable when they come from coaches and fans.

Would anybody dare say that an official that says it could be a ball-watcher?