The NBA Rule No One Knew in Celtics vs Pistons Game

The NBA Rule No One Knew in Celtics vs Pistons Game

Okay, sports fans, you got to check this out and I hope you’re having a wonderful Thanksgiving. But I got to go through this because it was crazy, insane. Lots of things to unpack with the rules. So, we have the Celtics up by three. They’re going to take a foul here to stop them from shooting the three-point shot and tying the game, which is really great strategy, but you got to make sure you don’t foul them while they’re shooting the ball. We have on the floor, two free throws, the referee right here has got it. No shots. Uh, and that’s usually what happens. We see this all the time where, you know, it’s close, but, you know, everyone knows they’re taking the foul, so they’re not going to call this a shooting foul. However, if you look up here at the top of the screen, we’re going to see the the lead official, Tony Brothers, come running in and say, “Well, wait a minute. I got something different here.” Even though it was really far away. Uh, and Kate Cunningham wants three free throws. He’s arguing. And Brother says, “Well, I got something different. I think he was shooting when they call hit the contact with him. We’re going to give him three free throws.” Kate Cunningham should be really excited that he got this call, right? He’s now going to be able to tie the game up with three free throws. Does he look excited? Not really. I mean, we might find out why in a couple seconds. But Missoula, to his credit, lets go of the anger. We have Jaylen Brown praying to the basketball gods. I guess he’s not going to get any relief there. But I want to give credit to Missoula for letting go the anger he had and saying, “Well, I got to prepare my team because I’m assuming we’re going to be down by or it’s going to be a tie game and we’re going to we have we don’t have any timeouts. I got to drop a play for them. I can’t be mad and be arguing whatever. I got to get them prepared.” So, kudos to that getting them ready to go. Now, we do have a quick review here, but not for the foul. He simply wants to find out where the clock was left off when that uh whistle blew. And here’s the angle that a lot of the Celtics fans got mad with or used to get mad because they think that he was fouled uh before the shooting motion, but we can’t really see. This is not a good enough angle. It’s stacked. The referee’s in the way. We can’t really see when the gather is or when whenever what’s going on with the ball or even with the hands on the on the hips. So, we got to switch this to a different angle because uh it doesn’t really help us. But before we do that, we have to actually understand what constitutes a field goal attempt. So, here’s the rule book and it says for jump shots, the shooting motion starts when the offensive player starts to bring the ball upwards towards the basket. Okay, so that’s pretty clear, but this is not a jump shot in this situation here. What we saw a few seconds before was when they did take another foul up by three under 10 seconds where he’s not in his upward shooting motion. This is a jump shot. He catches the ball. Both hands are already in the ball. So, it’s not a gather situation. It’s simply upward motion. And you can tell here the ball is already still on the way down, you know, and he’s on the way down. He’s not upward shooting motion. And here’s the legal contact on his back and inside. So, that’s why that was clear. Even though Kunningham got upset and wanted his free throws for that one, Shyman knows it’s definitely not a foul. Now, the second part of this rule is that on drives to the basket or other moving shots, the shooting motion starts when the player gathers the ball and continues through with a shot. So, we have a moving shot. This is exactly what this is with K Cunningham. So this makes a lot of sense. Now we have to apply this. So now with this rule, it says when the player gathers the ball, that’s the whole, you know, game, right? If he’s moving, it’s gathering. So did he gather the ball before the contact? This is a good example here, a good angle. Now, here would be a two-hand gather, but we have to and you know, at that point, I got to tell you, this is pretty much when the illegal contact starts to happen. So I would say he gathered and and this would be three free throws. Not a problem, right? That should be even though I don’t know how to tone brothers saw that it was close enough here where clearly human eye would process that you know there the left hand we can’t quite see though as an issue but the right hand’s really not causing illegal contact till about there and with the you know pretty much the right foot down at that angle but remember all the people out here who get so mad at the modern game and the way the referees call these things and they want to say well they let carries go all the time look well he’s got his left hand underneath the ball way early here with the left foot down look the ball has stopped spinning. He’s definitely paused it. And this is way before any contact. So you could argue easily that for sure he gathered the ball and then he goes up into his legal two steps because remember the gather step which is the foot down when he ends the dribble doesn’t count to the two steps. The left foot’s down. He gets right left. So this is clearly a shooting foul, right? No doubt about it. When he gathers the ball because again all you guys out there who want to say, well look, he clearly pauses the ball. The dribble ends there. And that’s definitely when uh you know you’d have to say before any kind of foul happens we can see from behind there and again Tony Brothers as you can see him over here way behind the play but that’s what he thinks he sees. However, the last part of this rule is the most important that you don’t want to ignore even though it’s in parenthesis and it says except during a take foul situation when the clocks are not expiring the shooting begins when the player shoulders start upward. So, we know it’s a take foul situation because we know the the defense wants to take the foul, not let him shoot a three. We also know the clocks are not expiring. This is 3.8 seconds, 4 seconds to go. There’s no way they’re in that situation. It’s not imminent of horn. So, that doesn’t count either. So, this is really the situation we need. So, now it’s not the gather, it is the shooting begins when the players should start upward. So, now we got to look at, well, what are what are her shoulders doing? And I got to tell you, when you watch this, the shoulders seem pretty much on an even plane here the entire time until the foul occurs. And I’m also looking for any kind of hinge upwards here. It doesn’t really start happening until there, right? That that’s the hinge of the shoulders upwards. So, there really is no upward shoulder motion from any direction here until after the contact. So, in reality, that’s the play they got to be worried about. And that’s when Tony Brothers said upward shooting motion, he didn’t really get into the upward shooting motion as far as I can see, especially because they focus on the shoulders in this um in this rule here. Player shoulders start upward, right? And they’re very explicit when they use rules like that. So crazy that I’ve never even noticed that before in the rule book. But because of that, this ends up being not a great call. It really should have been on the floor and the referee right here had it down perfectly on that one. And then that should have been the play that we should have followed. Now, we have to move on to our uh what brother said after the game because he says uh the the we conference and had a definite knowledge that he was in his upward shooting motion at the time the foul occurred. And that was kind of the issue was he really wasn’t and that’s why he changed it. But he also does change his answer here and says it was your judgment call that it was a three-shot foul and he goes he was in his shooting motion. He got rid of the word upward which to me kind of implies he wanted to go to the gather part of it. But that’s the problem. The rule in my mind is pretty clear that he needed to be in the upward shooting motion. The shoulders needed to go upward. That wasn’t the case. So, uh we’re have to find out how they rule this in the two-minute report. But the bottom line is he just wasn’t there. But I do like this notion that he did gather the ball there. Clearly the dribble ended and um if it wasn’t in that situation uh where there was a take foul, then it would have been three free throws. Now, don’t forget with Prize Picks, my sponsor I always have. You got to check them out because they’re the only app that offers stacks where you can pick the same player up to three times in the same lineup. So, if you download the Prize Pix app today and use code CNS, you can get 50 bucks in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. So, check them out as well at the link below. Uh, now the only thing I want to say is that what it turned out that Kate Cunningham got the three free throws. And again, look at his eyes. Is he is he excited about the prospect of being able to tie the game? He hit the first two free throws, no problem. But on the third one, he lines it up, puts it up, and you know, sphincteritis, right? Gets a little bit nervous and breaks that one short. It doesn’t break it, but he it’s short. And that tells you a lot in a way that uh, you know, if he wants to be in the MVP conversation, he can’t do this. He’s got to hit those three free throws. And I know it’s a regular season game. It is an NBA cup, but it’s, you know, a lot of pressure. He’s got to come through. And if he wants to really get to that next level, I want to see him be able to make though that last free throw. Now, the other problem is earlier in the game in a very crucial time when they were down by one, he turns the ball over on a really not good behind the back dribble. And credit to Derek White. This is a great double to to to jump in. I know he’s coming off of a great shooter here in Duncan Robinson, but he’s also noticing that there’s a behind the back dribble that he can maybe take a quick stab at and then maybe get back to the shooter. And uh so great play by him, but Kate can’t do that either. That’s a really not good uh play at the end of a game where again if you want to get yourself in that MVP conversation, you got to be able to handle that ball, get the shot up at least and take it. If not, you know, you can’t have the ball go out of bounds off of you like that. So, um I’m I’m hoping he’s having an amazing season. The Pistons are having an amazing season. Long winning streak, but we got to start having some more instances where we don’t finish with expressions like this. And I’m telling you, once he does, uh listen, I have no problem getting him in that MVP conversation. and also the finishing of the rim stuff. So, uh, great. I’m excited about the Piston season, but the this one was, uh, one they let get away even though they got some benefit from the refs. But I hope you guys all have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Have a terrific time with your family and your friends and great turkey. And I’ll catch you up, uh, tomorrow with another video. And don’t forget, sports fans, at Ball Breakdown, it’s not a channel, it’s a conversation. You win.

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Okay sports fans, this one was wild. Celtics up three, Detroit tries to extend the game, Boston takes the intentional foul to stop the three, and Cade Cunningham ends up with three free throws after Tony Brothers overrules the original call. But was that actually the right decision by the rulebook, or did the refs get it wrong?
In this breakdown, Coach Nick goes frame by frame through the final possession and the NBA rulebook to explain:
The difference between a take foul and a normal shooting foul
Why the rulebook treats jump shots and moving shots differently
How the gather step, dribble end, and “upward shooting motion” are supposed to work
The key clause most fans miss, that says on take fouls with time left, the shot only starts when the shoulders move upward
And why, by that standard, this should have been a foul on the floor, not three free throws
Then we look at Cade’s missed third free throw, his late behind the back turnover, and what these clutch moments mean if he wants to be in the MVP conversation on a surging Pistons team.
#NBA #Pistons #Celtics #CadeCunningham #WNBA #NBACup #BasketballBreakdown #HoopsMystery #Verticality #TakeFoul #OffensiveReads
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