Can you flex too much?
 

Friday night a team was playing 2-3. The offensive team would swing the ball very quickly and have their post players running an x patter so that one would be high post and one low post. sometimes the low post would step out to the short corner. This would have us flexing every 4 sec or so. Some times we would flex 5 or more times in a 30 second possession.

2-person or 3-person?

Might just be me, but if I'm the L, I'm more likely to go back-and-forth in situations like this in 2-person than I am in 3-person, mainly because I don't want to get my C and T caught in a rotation when someone starts a try.

Yeah, that sometimes means you end up in a bad position as the 2-person L, but them's the breaks of 2-person officiating.

I'll assume 3 whistles. I flex often early, but when it becomes clear that they're doing a lot of skip passes and keeping the ball out of the paint, I tend to wait a bit more. I'll look for one of three things.

1. The C starts a 5 second count.
2. Someone starts dribbling in the C's primary.
3. The ball drops below the FT line.

These aren't perfect, but I don't know how much benefit is gained by continuously moving from one side of the lane to the other.

I'd be curious what others say, though.

When I saw the topic, "Can you flex too much?", I thought it was supposed to be in the football forum and about Ed Hochuli. :D

zone defense i tend to be slower on rotating in both 2 or 3 person. I try and get deeper, but for the most part the defense doesn't really move to much.

I go when I need to go and stay when I need to stay. That being said, understanding the offense and defense goes a long way in knowing when to move.

If the low-post opposite goes out to the short corner, that's a good reason to rotate.

Otherwise, just pinch the paint instead of a full rotation.

WTF is a flex?? I'll assuming you are talking about rotating (not switching either mind you, switching happens during a dead ball). If there is a zone of any kind and I am Lead I stay at close down the whole time. I don't rotate across, even if the ball has settled below the FTLE on C side -- the ball is very likely to swing back to the middle or skip pass to strong side. I only go across if there are 7 or more players over there or two defenders have started trapping the ball and I feel the ball will stay over there long enough for me to rotate. It's a feel when it comes down to it, but you can't go wrong under rotating with a zone. Sometimes you gotta referee from where you are.

You know what he meant by flex. DBAD.

The one time it goes down into a post player and you're in the closed down position not rotating "cause it's a zone" -- and force the C to officiate that post player...the crew is out of position. If you rotate once it's in the post, you'll be moving at the money shot...out of position.

It's OK to rotate multiple times in a possession and it's not a failure on your part to rotate over and then have to rotate back a few seconds later. Wait a beat, get a feel, then go.

Look for reasons to rotate. Immediate shot, immediate skip pass, drive to the bucket are 3 reasons not to rotate. Adam's advice is the best advice in this thread for someone wanting to understand 3-person and "when to rotate" the best.

Insisting other referees only use rule book terminology is douchey? TIL.

Another thing to consider is the strength of your crew. A strong C should be able to referee post play on his side by himself if the Lead is not quick enough to get over. If there is an inexperienced guy on the crew then perhaps be quicker to get to his side. I work with a lot of guys who start bailing from C as soon as the ball enters their area (don't do that BTW), so you gotta consider that if you are patient and don't rotate you might end up with two Trails (never a good thing) until old C gets his head out of his ass. It all depends.

Oh, you thought I meant douche there? :D

If the L gets over earlier, he's there and is the best person to officiate post play.

I find there's too many people who seemed bothered by a rotation and a rotation back -- those are the people who complain about people who rotate too much and, not coincidentally, don't rotate enough.

Consider: Player's posting up, opposite block. Ball's on the C's side, above the FT line. If I think there's a decent chance it's ending up in the post's hands there, I'm rotating over. If the ball's passed across the court to another guard up high, now I have the same setup I had a few seconds earlier, but reversed. Why is this a bad thing -- because I'm forcing the T and C to move or to be aware of where I am as the L? That's part of our job. And if that pass does come into the post...I'm there, with perfect position. If a player starts posting up on the other side ...wash, rinse, repeat...I rotate back over.

At the high school level, I'd rather see crews rotate more than try to give people more reasons to not rotate. Lots of HS officials don't need those -- they already don't rotate enough.

Whenever I get confused by you young whippersnappers texting lingo I just pop over to Urban Dictionary and check out the results. :D

There are plenty of reason we can give officials to rotate and/or not rotate. The key is developing a sense of when the ball is gonna stay over there versus when it will probably come back. At some point it stops becoming a science and starts becoming an art.

And until officials develop that art, they need to go more and run the "risk" they have to go back.

Otherwise you end up with games like ones I've had in the past -- working with guys who rotate once in an entire game and claim they can get just as good of looks by "working deep."

Congratulations...those are 2-man mechanics...you're telling the school they can save $60.

(Consider the situation you mentioned where you let the C officiate the post player opposite the L outside the paint. Tell me how this differs one iota from 2-person mechanics...this is exactly how we'd officiate this play in 2-person.)

Well hopefully the C would be at FTLE, where I rarely see the 2-person Trail in games I watch. And it's not just C, Lead is reffing the inside post defender from across the lane. Not ideal, but post play is a reason (zone or man-to-man) for the Lead to get his butt over there. C reffing post play on his side should ideally only be temporary.

Well, if I'm officiating the post player in 2-person, I've dropped down to get the best look at it I can. Probably not at the sideline, but I've dropped low and worked for the best angle I can get. I've seen a lot of Cs with cement shoes -- getting to the FTLE and dropping anchor. I'd rather have a trail with active feet than that C...

My point is that once the post player gets the ball, it's many times too late to rotate. The goal should be to be there, in position, when the post player receives the ball in order to officiate that part of it as well as the rest. If you rotate after he gets there, you run a real risk of being in mid-rotation in the middle of the lane when the post player makes his move.

This is a really old term. I could see where people would not know what that meant anymore.

Peace