NBA referees are calling about 11% more personal fouls per game in the playoffs than they did in the regular season, a gap that is on pace to be one of the largest in league history, the report says.
NBA senior vice president of referee development and training Monty McCutchen acknowledged a difference between regular-season and playoff officiating but said the way officials work does not fundamentally change in the postseason. Speaking at the NBA draft combine, McCutchen said the concentrated intensity of seven-game series produces a different game and that it would be difficult on players, coaches and officials if that level of intensity were present across an 82-game schedule.
Per the report, playoff referees continue to study tape after games and every call is evaluated just as in the regular season. McCutchen has repeatedly said the league’s referee corps is constantly striving to improve, and he noted that the heightened stakes of the postseason naturally bring greater scrutiny and hotter emotions to individual plays.
The report places this season’s jump in historical context: the increase from the regular season to the playoffs has occurred 66 times in the NBA’s 80-year history. This season’s differential of more than 10 percent is only the sixth such instance in the last 60 years, and the five largest increases — ranging from 13 percent to 17 percent — all took place between 1949 and 1955.
The report cites recent playoff incidents as an example of that heightened passion, including the ejection of San Antonio Spurs star Victor Wembanyama after he elbowed Minnesota’s Naz Reid. Spurs coach Mitch Johnson defended his player, saying opposing teams sometimes try to impose physicality that can force a reaction. McCutchen said the league prefers aggressive play that stops short of roughness, that officials do not avoid calling fouls, and that the goal is to adjudicate passionately contested games without letting them become rough.
