Almost all basketball fans are familiar with the following scenario.

In a tight game late in the fourth quarter, Team A has the ball and works it to their leading scorer, who is playing with five fouls. The leading scorer fakes an outside shot, forcing his defender to leave his feet in an attempt to contest it, and drives to the hoop. One of Team B’s players slides over. Just as the player on Team A releases the ball, the two collide and tumble to the floor in a heap. The ball goes in. Fans of Team A are thinking three-point play, but the referee jumps in and points the other way. Offensive foul! Now Team A’s leading scorer has fouled out, they’ve lost possession of the ball, the basket didn’t count, and the momentum has swung hard over to Team B.

Not all offensive fouls have that kind of dramatic impact, but all result in a turnover. Although many things are tallied by NBA statisticians, only this year did someone start keeping league-wide track of offensive fouls. The results were recently published at www.82games.com, a site best known for it’s compendium of data on plus/minus stats, i.e. whether a team has a net positive or negative score during a player’s time on the floor.

At some level, it’s ironic that this would be the season that offensive fouls would start to get their due, as two players who are known as charge-takers – the Nes’ Jason Collins and Denver’s Nene – have been injured for much (Collins) if not all (Nene) of the campaign. Phoenix’s Raja Bell, long regarded as a premier perimeter defender, has taken the most charges of anyone on the league, 50 as of January 31, but the player with the second most is Collins’s twin brother Jarron, who plays for Utah. One has to wonder if they practiced taking charges instead of hook shots as kids playing in their driveway.

The site breaks down four categories of players who made their top 30 in taking offensive fouls: tough perimeter players like Philadelphia’s Allen Iverson, Phoenix’s Steve Nash, Boston’s Paul Pierce, San Antonio’s Manu Ginobili, and Denver’s Andre Miller; inside players with good all-around games like Indiana’s Jermaine O’Neal and Toronto’s Chris Bosh; defensive specialists like San Antonio’s Bruce Bowen, Chicago’s Andres Nocioni, Memphis’s Shane Battier, Detroit’s Ben Wallace, Denver’s Eduardo Najera, and Phoenix’s Kurt Thomas; and players who might otherwise be overlooked, like Chicago’s Kirk Hinrich, Toronto’s Morris Peterson, Milwaukee’s Andrew Bogut, and the Nets’ Nenad Krstic.

The other local player in the top 30 is the Knicks Maurice Taylor, who has taken 19 offensive fouls this season.

The data enriches our profiles of players, but a bigger question is which teams do this especially well. For instance, the Nets, a team without much in the way of shot blocking, often create turnovers inside with Krstic and Collins taking charges. the Nets rank within the top half of the league in charges taken, as do the Knicks, who are eighth with 107.

The Knicks’ presence in the top 10 begs another question. Does taking offensive fouls correlate with winning? The data in the site’s study suggests that the relationship is fuzzy at best.

Phoenix, a very good defensive team, (and yes, that bears repeating, the Suns are fourth in Defensive Efficiency, allowing only 103.9 points per 100 possession), leads the league with 156 offensive fouls drawn, but they’re followed by Utah, Chicago, and Toronto, iffy bets at best to make it out of the lottery. New Orleans/Oklahoma City, Washington, and Sacramento are also in the top 10.

Those three teams, the Knicks and Nets, and Chicago are all in the bottom 10 of shots blocked, so one conclusion is that teams lacking an intimidator to function as the base of their defense are game-planning to create turnovers via offensive fouls. Conversely, teams that block a lot of shots, like the Pistons, Spurs, and Heat, who all feature frightening inside players, are near the bottom of the league in taking charges.

Going on this information, it would seem that taking charges is a valuable secondary defensive indicator, much as getting to the free throw line is on offense.

It’s accepted wisdom that getting to the line is an important offensive indicator since drawing fouls on defenders forces them to the bench and awards a high percentage shot to the victim. we know that free throws attempts are not a primary offensive indicator because the Knicks lead the league in that category. However, several exceptional offenses, including Dallas, Cleveland, Washington, and Philadelphia – all of whom rank in the top 10 in Offensive Efficiency – rank among the top visitors to the free throw line.

Studies like this may not offer earth shattering news, but they enhance our understanding of the game, especially since some players seem to be uniquely skilled at taking that game changing charge.

mjohnson@nysun.com