If you have instant replay — the ability to get close calls right — you should use it. Better to drag the end of a game out a little and have the calls be right than to rush and be wrong.
Along those lines, the owners voted Thursday to expand the use of instant replay in specific situations. Those are:
• On all flagrant foul calls. Previously referees could only review a flagrant 2 call, the more severe that called for ejection. That led to some awkward decisions, let’s just call this the Udonis Haslem rule. Now if it’s a flagrant it can be reviewed. As it should have been at the start.
• On late game goaltending/restricted area calls in the final two minutes of games. Again, you want calls to be correct at the end of games so this makes sense. Allowing the referees to review goaltending calls, which is a little more straightforward, is pretty easy.
The restricted area thing gets more complicated, because block/charge calls are often borderline and involve a lot of factors at once. As Zach Lowe asked at Sports Illustrated:
Take this scenario: A referee whistles a defensive player for a blocking foul and points to the restricted area semicircle, indicating the defender was inside the circle, and that his position there was the reason for the call. Imagine that upon video review, it turns out the defender was actually outside the circle. But also imagine that video review reveals the defender was moving in a way that would be a violation regardless of his positioning in or out of the circle–an illegal bit of movement the referees missed on first look.
Do you stick with the original blocking call because of that illegal movement, or overturn the original call and rule the play a charge, based on the defender being out of the circle? A league source says the reversal would be mandated, and if that’s the case, the NBA has gotten into dicey territory here.
The owners discussed the issue of flopping but no rule changes were mandated. But that also is tricky, to give the referees more power over a call that, depending on your angle and the speed of the play, can be hard to call.
The more likely flopping answer is review by the league office the next day and fines.