NBA's Lack of Foresight Dooms Magic
When it comes to changing rules, sports leagues tend to be reactive rather than proactive. In other words, most rules changes result not from somebody thinking ahead to what might happen, but rather as a consequence of something that already occurred and seemed unfair.
We've seen this several times over in the NBA. When Wilt Chamberlain dominated around the rim, the league reacted by expanding the three-second lane. When Paul Westphal called a time-out his team didn't have at the end of Game 5 of the 1974 Finals in order to advance the ball to midcourt — allowing the Suns to tie the game — the league reacted by making the tactic illegal.
And when a 1994 fight between the Knicks' Derek Harper and the Bulls' Jo Jo English nearly ended up in commissioner David Stern's lap, the league put in the rule mandating automatic suspensions for players leaving the bench area during an altercation.
Over the summer, we can expect the league to put in a rule that allows referees to look at a replay in the case of a clock malfunction. But unfortunately, that rule change will be a year too late for the Orlando Magic.
Orlando's 100-93 loss to Detroit in Game 2 on Monday put the Magic down 2-0 in their best-of-seven series, and a clock malfunction at the end of the third quarter was a huge reason why.
With 5.1 seconds left and Detroit in possession, Chauncey Billups began dribbling upcourt — but the clock stopped on 4.8 and didn't restart for several seconds. Billups took a few dribbles in the backcourt before throwing it ahead to guard Rodney Stuckey, who took a couple more dribbles into the lane, jumped in the air, and threw it back to Billups. Billups made the catch and launched a successful 3-pointer. At the end of the sequence the clock showed 4.1 seconds.
The officials convened to figure out what to do, but they couldn't use a replay to help themselves. All they could do was try to count back how long the play might have taken, and as fallible human beings, their best guess turned out to be a fair ways off. They guesstimated that the entire play took 4.6 seconds, including the part after the shot, and allowed the 3-pointer by Billups.
But the use a stopwatch tells a different story: It turns out that the Pistons had already used 5.2 seconds by the time the ball left Billups's hand. In other words, the shot should never have counted, which would have taken three points off the board for Detroit.
Those three points loomed large down the stretch of the game. The Magic trailed by two with 11 seconds left before they had to start fouling, leading to the final seven-point margin. Had the shot been disallowed, they would have been protecting a one-point lead instead.
Nobody can be sure the final minutes would have played out the same way, obviously, and it's quite possible Orlando would have lost anyway. Nonetheless, it has to be particularly grating for the Magic to lose on such a call, because history says that teams who lose the first two games have a 94% chance of losing the series.
It didn't have to happen this way. The NBA put in a rule a few years ago allowing officials to use replay to determine whether a shot beat the buzzer. But the rule stipulated that the officials could only use it in situations where the clock showed zero.
Left out, then, were situations where the clock ought to show zero but didn't because somebody didn't start it properly. It would have been much fairer for all if the officials had been allowed to watch a replay and use a stopwatch. But because the league wasn't forward-thinking enough when it created the rule, this didn't happen.
"[Referee] Steve Javie told me that with the technology they have, they should be able to go over and look at that," the Orlando coach, Stan Van Gundy, said. "They did not have that available. He was frustrated by that — probably not quite as much as us."
The league itself admitted that the shot shouldn't have counted, but reiterated that referees would not have been able to use instant replay to prove that fact. "Under NBA rules, the referees did not have the option of using instant replay and a timing device to determine exactly how much time had elapsed," the president of the league, Joel Litvin, said in a statement, "nor do the rules allow for a re-play after a clock malfunction is discovered."
It should be noted, by the way, that this wasn't the case of a "hometown" timekeeper. The league flies in timekeepers from other cities for playoff games for this exact reason. It should also be noted that the Magic can't blame their defeat solely on the erroneously counted 3-pointer. The Magic had a four-point lead with seven minutes left and then proceeded to score nine points the rest of the game.
Additionally, two mental gaffes in the final minute hurt badly. First, Hedo Turkoglu launched a crazy, off-the-dribble 3-pointer with 48.9 seconds left and his team down 95-93. It appeared he was trying to take advantage of a "two-for-one" situation by shooting quickly, thereby denying Detroit a chance to run the clock down for the final shot. But in that situation, scoring a basket at all was a much greater consideration than denying the Pistons the final shot.
Second, Keyon Dooling committed a no-no when he fouled Richard Hamilton before the ball was inbounded with 11 seconds left. That gave Hamilton a foul shot and allowed Detroit to keep the ball; the Pistons expanded their lead to five points on that possession to all but end the game. Throw in 19 turnovers, an 11-point second quarter, and a measly four points from the bench, and the Magic had plenty of reasons to blame themselves rather than the timekeepers.
Nonetheless, the losing side can't help but think about how the game might have been different had Billups's 3-pointer not counted. And if they end up losing the series in seven games, they'll undoubtedly point back to that one play as a major reason.
Like I said, it didn't have to happen this way. Had the league been proactive instead of reactive when drafting its rules, it would have considered the possibility of clock malfunctions. Instead they'll wait until next year for that rule, and the Magic will be left to wonder, "What if?"
jhollinger@nysun.com
