The first-round playoff series last year between the Boston Celtics and the Chicago Bulls was a memorable montage of overtimes and clutch shots. Celtics Coach Doc Rivers remembers it for another reason.
In Game 4, Boston held a 3-point lead with nine seconds remaining in overtime. He instructed his team to intentionally foul so Chicago could get only 2 points at the free-throw line, instead of potentially tying the game with a 3-pointer. His players failed to foul. Ben Gordon’s 3 tied the game and Chicago won in double overtime.
“We literally forgot to foul,” Rivers said. “We came out of the timeout and were going to foul. We messed it up. They score and win the game in overtime. And it takes us two extra games to win the series.”
Rivers faced a decision that coaches at all levels wrestle with: whether to foul with a 3-point lead and the shot clock off. It is one of the most heavily debated topics among the best N.B.A. minds.
It was a factor in last year’s playoffs, including the finals, and probably will be again this postseason, when teams are more evenly matched and playoff survival is at stake.
According to an analysis provided by Synergy Sports Technology, the situation presented itself 165 times in the last two N.B.A. seasons with 10 seconds or less left on the game clock. The conclusion? Although coaches debate the strategy of fouling intentionally, most rarely do. Teams deliberately fouled in only 19 of those instances. (One team tried to foul but was unable to because of ball movement.) No team fouled with a second or less remaining.
Teams that deliberately fouled won 17 of the 19 games in regulation and lost once. Teams won all 14 of the games in which they purposefully fouled with five seconds or less to play. One game went to overtime, and the team that fouled when leading in regulation won.
When teams chose not to foul, they won 128 games and lost 4 in regulation, according to Synergy, which logs every N.B.A. game and provides data to teams. Fourteen games went to overtime, and the teams split the victories.
Rivers is firmly on one side of the debate. “We absolutely foul them,” he said.
Others passionately advocate the opposite approach.
“I never take the foul,” Atlanta Hawks Coach Mike Woodson said. “I just always put it on our team to defend.”
On the surface, it seems like an easy choice. Long-distance shooting has improved and teams cannot tie the score if they are not given the chance. Intentional fouls remove the surest route to a tie: the 3-pointer.
“It’s a complicated problem,” said Sam Hinkie, Houston’s vice president for basketball operations. “Sometimes I’ve been convinced it was right to foul and disagreed, other times I’ve thought we shouldn’t foul and others disagreed.”
Coaches weigh several factors before deciding to foul intentionally: the time left, the timeouts for both teams, the foul situation, the likely ball handlers, defensive rebounding and offensive rebounding, where the ball is inbounded, the experience of the players involved, both teams’ free-throw shooting abilities, whether they can successfully execute the foul and how much the team has practiced that situation.
Coaches worry about a crafty player inducing a foul while shooting and being awarded a devastating three free throws instead of two. They ask themselves, What happens if the opposition makes the first free throw, misses the second, and gets the rebound?
“Fouling sounds like an easy thing to do, but it’s not always that easy,” Dallas Coach Rick Carlisle said.
In a poll of half of this postseason’s 16 playoff coaches, the philosophies were generally split. Most said their decision hinged on the game’s situation. The results mimicked what Rivers found last summer when he took a pilgrimage with several coaches with North Carolina roots, including George Karl, Dean Smith and Larry Brown.
“It was split right in half,” Rivers said. “It’s a heated debate. I’ve always believed in fouling and I’ve always thought that’s what you should do, and you get strong arguments against it. It’s more of a comfort thing.”
When teams do foul, it goes against two instincts: intentionally allowing points and extending the game, even though they hold the lead. Coaches are also cognizant of how the decision will be dissected afterward. If they think vastly outside the box — as New England Patriots Coach Bill Belichick did last year when he elected to go for it while ahead by 6 on fourth-and-2 at his 28-yard line to keep the ball out of Peyton Manning’s hands — they will be heavily scrutinized.
“I think the only way you can lose that way is to foul,” said Portland Coach Nate McMillan, adding, “You may go into overtime, you may have a shot, but you don’t lose the game.”
The play-by-play announcer Mike Breen estimated that the situation presented itself every couple of weeks, sometimes more often.
“I’m amazed at how many times it happens,” Breen said. “What I’m also amazed at is the hesitancy of coaches to foul. But when you start talking to them and they go from A to B to C to D, you can understand. To me, of all the scenarios that are present, the easiest one is for the guy to hit an open 3-pointer.”
Orlando Coach Stan Van Gundy chose not to foul in Game 4 of the N.B.A. finals last June. The Lakers’ Derek Fisher buried a 3-pointer to tie the score, 87-87, with four seconds left, and the Lakers won in overtime. They clinched the title the next game.
“You’ve got to have confidence that your guys can go knock down two free throws the other way on a pretty consistent basis,” Van Gundy said.
Brown, the Bobcats’ coach, laughed when asked what he did in the situation. He generally opposes it. Against the Miami Heat earlier this season, he told his players not to foul while the Bobcats held a 3-point lead with seven seconds remaining.
He then walked down the bench and sought the opinion of the soon-to-be-owner Michael Jordan, who suggested the Bobcats foul.
I had already told them not to,” Brown said. “Dwyane Wade shot a 3 that thankfully just banged out.”
Timing, many coaches said, was the biggest influence on whether they fouled. If there is a star player on the court, like Kobe Bryant or Wade, Rivers may foul even earlier.
Carlislie said, “Generally, our philosophy is that if it’s down under 10 seconds, that’s when you get into a serious discussion about fouling intentionally.”
Internationally, teams foul more, a strategy Manu Ginobili, who played in Argentina, occasionally broaches with Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich.
“Manu tells me about it all the time,” Popovich said. “I say: ‘Manu, I don’t have that type of guts. I’m not going to do it.’ ”
Utah Coach Jerry Sloan has drifted back and forth on the issue. After losing while intentionally fouling once early in his career, he became hesitant.
In the second game of the Jazz’s series against the Denver Nuggets, Utah led by 3 points with 11.3 seconds left. With the Nuggets possessing the ball, Sloan chose not to foul and Chauncey Billups missed a 3-pointer. With six seconds left in the same situation, Sloan again chose not to foul, and Billups’s 3-pointer again rattled out. Strategy, if not fate, was on Sloan’s side that night.
“I guess it’s worked both ways,” Sloan said toward the end of the regular season. “I’m not going to lose a lot of sleep about it. That’s kind of the way we look at it. Just kind of see who you got out there.”
So, when to foul? With less than 15 seconds? Less than 10? Less than five? Always, sometimes, never? For coaches, it is a puzzle with no correct answer, only opportunities for regret.
