NBA Has a Consistency Problem with How Playoff Games Are Being Officiated

The NBA has undoubtedly displayed some more physical basketball since the All-Star break.

In March, the league acknowledged that at some point in the season, new officiating focuses impacted the flood of scoring 2023-24 had seen to that point.

So, it feels fitting that this more rugged eventually led us to another playoff series between the Indiana Pacers and New York Knicks.

Suddenly, it feels like we're back in the 1990s again. Reggie Miller, Rik Smits, Patrick Ewing and John Starks aren't wearing the jerseys anymore, but orange and blue vs. blue and gold feels familiar.

And the overwhelming majority of Monday's Game 1—a 121-117 Knicks win—honored the tradition.

But with just over 12 seconds left in the fourth quarter and the Pacers down one, officials took the game out of the players' hands.

With Tyrese Haliburton breaking slightly to the left from halfcourt and his defender, Donte DiVincenzo, five feet off him, Myles Turner set a run-of-the-mill screen outside the three-point line. DiVincenzo hit the deck like he ran into a 2x4, rather than the kind of screen you see dozens of times every game.

The sideline ref took the bait, called a moving screen and gave the ball back to the Knicks.

The play was even reviewed. The call was upheld. It was unquestionably more of a flop than a moving screen, but the ball was headed the other way. And to make matters worse, Andrew Nembhard was called for an away-from-the-play foul before the ball was inbounded again. Brunson sank that free throw, then nailed two more after he was fouled to stop the clock on the next possession.

At that point, the game was essentially over. And the score held steady at 121-117.

That Pacers possession, with 12 seconds to go, could've been electric. Indiana likely would've held for the last shot. A game-winner would've been a heck of a way to start the series. But we'll never know how that possession would've played out, thanks to a routine play randomly being called differently than it typically is.

And therein lies perhaps the biggest issue with the officiating adjustment. On balance, the more physical game is a better watch. It beats the constant foul grifting and other trickery that'd become so common in the first half of the season.

But it's turned a lot of games into rugby matches sporadically interrupted by whistles, especially in the playoffs. Players have naturally adapted to the rougher game, so everybody is understandably confused when those calls come. For several possessions in a row, there's uncalled contact on every touch. Then, suddenly, something like the moving screen call on Turner happens.

You can see it in just about every game right now, but it was especially bad in Madison Square Garden on Monday.

It wasn't just the call. It was the situation in which it was made.

"The charge call on Turner was reprehensible," The Ringer's Bill Simmons posted. "Come on."

Fox Sports' Kevin Wildes added, "I'm pulling for the Knicks but that is a horrible call on Myles Turner."

The Pacers, understandably, agreed.

Rick Carlisle took a slightly different approach, saying they didn't expect calls in MSG but also added, "It would be nice if they laid off that one, but they didn't."

Now, we await the last two-minute report. Will they admit a mistake or echo the in-game crew's explanation about Turner moving?

Either way, it's worth mentioning that the league's officials have an impossible task. These are the biggest, fastest athletes in the world. Just about every possession features a bang-bang play that could draw some kind of reaction from the refs, especially since players have started playing more physically.

And again, if the alternative is to go back to a bunch of unwarranted foul calls, unimpeded paths to the rim and exorbitant point totals, the current approach is the preferable one.

But if the NBA is committed to the adjustments it made next season, the officials will have to find the balance that eliminates moments like Monday's moving screen.

Relative to the way games have been played for months, it was nothing.