Illegal defense?

[crosscountry55]

You're probably not going to like this answer, but what you describe as "boxing out" is actually a pushing foul for displacing the person behind you, who has just as much a right to his spot on the floor as you do to yours. Will such a foul be called every time? No. We officials have to judge what contact is marginal versus what is illegal. A good indicator of illegal is if you back into the other player and then come away with the rebound. That's a foul on you; we judge the whole play, start to finish (at least that's our goal; we try to have a patient whistle on ball).

On the flip side, if you're not trying to overcome your height disadvantage by backing down the person behind you, and said person still puts a knee in your back, then that's a pushing foul on the other person. If I see that knee, what I'm looking for is if you end up unfavorably underneath the basket and the other guy gets the rebound. However, if he goes straight up and just rebounds above your head, I'm not going to penalize him for being tall. The crowd will say, "over the back, ref!" That is meaningless to me. I'm judging who displaces who and the subsequent result. If both players are pushing each other and neither is moving much as a result, I think that's just good hard basketball and I'm probably going to pass on a whistle unless shenanigans are going on between the two of you. If shenanigans, I'll probably verbalize, "easy, easy!" or "knock it off!" If it continues, I could always call a double foul. That's rare; I only have to use that tool maybe once a season, twice tops.

Great question and it's nice to see a player in the forum asking officials what we're looking for. Good on 'ya.

Disclaimer: I am not a coach. Your coach may tell you to push the envelope to see what you can get away with. Every official and crew is different, and good coaches test their boundaries on a game-by-game basis. So listen to your coach!