Time has come to expand use of instant replay
Mike Monroe
The NBA is good about reacting to rules that need tweaking when situations arise that prove change is required.
The latest example: Beginning next season, teams will not be able to score while having too many men on the court, as the Trail Blazers did in a game against the Celtics on Dec. 30.
The NBA's compe ion committee last week came up with a common-sense compromise that allows the team that played five against six to accept the action that occurred, or to nullify it. The team that played with six always gets a technical foul.
In other words, if the team playing five-on-six scores before the inequity is discovered, it can keep the two points.
It's a great response, though I might have preferred a declaration that any team that gets scored on when it has a six-on-five advantage be declared that game's loser, just on general principle.
Why it took the Celtics losing a close game — 91-86, with the Blazers getting one basket while having the extra player — to realize the rule needed a tweak is open for debate.
Once the compe ion committee tackled the rule, though, it got things right.
I wonder if the committee needs to look at another issue. After seeing evidence that a mistake was made at the end of Sunday's Spurs-Hornets game, it seems an expanded use of instant replay is warranted.
When Manu Ginobili fouled Chris Paul so the Spurs, trailing by one point, could stop the clock on a play that began with fewer than 24 seconds left, it was clear to viewers on television, who had benefit of having the game clock in a corner of their screens, that the clock didn't stop when referee David Jones called the foul. It ran down for about two additional seconds, maybe more.
The official scorekeeper at New Orleans Arena informed the referees of the error. However, none of the three referees had seen the clock running after the foul was called. Thus, they informed the scorer that, by rule, they were not allowed to check a replay monitor.
Only when time expires at the end of a period can a timing issue be reviewed by replay. This covers the clock being started either too soon or too late, plus physical malfunction of the clock.
Ordinarily, I'm opposed to anything that injects more replay review, but when the official timekeeper or scorekeeper sees that a mistake clearly has been made in the final 24 seconds of a game, it seems reasonable to use replay to get things right.
I'll be surprised if the compe ion committee isn't asked to consider such a change when it meets this summer.
Of course, if the Spurs hadn't had their second-worst 3-point shooting game of the season, Sunday's outcome might not have hinged on a timing error.
That the Spurs missed 22 of 29 3-point shots wasn't the most shocking result of the day, though.
The Suns blowing a chance to tighten the race for the West's final playoff berth by losing to the worst team in the West was a true stunner, especially since the Suns already knew the eighth-place Mavericks had lost to Cleveland on Sunday morning.
Sunday was a day of big surprises:
• How could the Hawks have beaten the Lakers when Joe Johnson, Atlanta's best player, went 4 for 18, with four turnovers?
• Who expected to see Allen Iverson back on the court for the Pistons at all this season. But there he was Sunday, helping Detroit beat Philadelphia?
Some things, though, were entirely predictable. CBS' “60 Minutes” ran a profile on LeBron James that credited him with inventing the pregame resin toss. Had the “60 Minutes” staff done a little more research, it would have known it was
another No. 23 that came up with that ritual: Michael Jordan, James' boyhood idol.
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