Welcome to the annals of NBA coaching, STEVE NASH
Nets played the FOUL game last night, up 3 with 9 ticks left. Won by 4.
Nearly backfired.
Harden fouled Batum who was passing to Paul George who was ahead of the play.
I don't know what the Clear Path rules are and clearly neither did any TNT announcer, who remained silent while the ref review was under way. But I suspect that if Batum was fouled after releasing the ball and not before, that it would have been 2 FT's for LAC and the ball. A gift while down 3.
So it's not so clear cut. (but I do like the move more when you have excellent FT shooters such as KI, KD and Harden).
Btw, the TNT announcers were terrible. Seemed they were following the Net dictum that you don't criticize any of the Big 3. Or maybe it's just the NBA guideline that stars never get called out for mistakes. For instance, with just a hair over a minute left up by 7, Durant goes in the air and throws a horrible pass back into a crowd easily stolen. This gets referred to vaguely as "a Net turnover." And no mention that two games before with 55 secs left in a tight game, KD crossed halfcourt and fumbled the ball out of bounds. The kind of late game mistakes he routinely made as a Thunder, when stepping out of bounds in crunch time was his specialty.
Earlier in the LAC game, maybe 6'2" Kyrie closes out on 6'7" Batum in the corner, makes significant contact with Batum's arm and Clips get a 4 point play. And the TNT announcer actually praises Kyrie for "making the right play" and closing out hard. A late close on a taller player resulting in a foul behind the arc, a 4 point play in this case, is never a good play.
Kyrie post- Wiz game
"I couldn't guard a stick out there"
Poll
