Nothing Prettier Than a 101-99 Game

Unlike LeBron James, I'm enjoying Playoff Prison Ball

From Subscriber Joe:

Pretty good day for the proponents of 100-100 being the platonic ideal NBA score.

I feel a bit bloodless and robotic making this observation in the aftermath of such a riveting playoff night, but yes. Knicks-Sixers (104-101) and Nuggets-Lakers (101-99) were about as great a doubleheader as basketball fans are ever going to get. Those games were captivating for a variety of reasons, but there’s a magic in every possession feeling hard.

When I wrote “The Public Wants Less Scoring” roughly one year ago, I couldn’t have imagined the league would actually a) Agree b) Successfully curb scoring within one year c) Do so in secret, against their own rules, and d) Have broadcasters aggressively promote the “reform” the league only recently denied was even happening. Hey, whatever works, I guess.

Of course, not everybody is happy with the results. With refs under pressure to now allow a certain amount of contact, many a play looks like prison ball. LeBron James, in the aftermath of yet another defeat at the hands of the Nuggets, gave voice to the idea that perhaps the NBA overcorrected:

D-Lo clearly gets hit in the face on the drive. What the fuck do we have a replay center [for] ... Makes no sense to me. It bothers me. And then I just saw what happened with the Sixers-Knicks game, too. What are we doing?

I’m reminded of Conquest’s rule (paraphrased), “Everyone is a conservative about the subjects they best understand.” While the public mostly enjoys the new whistle swallowing in an uncomplicated way, LeBron, man who’s mastered the intricacies of his world through great effort, is negatively fixated on upended norms. We can hazard that James is merely playing the result here, and that if his would be game winner had gone in, he feels different. Maybe, but LeBron continued to oppose the Play-In tournament after the Lakers persevered through it. I think he just hates the changes he hates.

Also, LeBron’s got a point, even if the complaints are a little much. There’s probably a middle path between Trae Young going to the free throw line whenever he winces and rugby scrums in the paint deciding basketball games. The end of Knicks-Sixers was perfect (unless you’re a Sixers fan), but it was also a mess inspired by either referee incompetence or chosen negligence. Some latitude with contact should be allowed in the closing moments, but there’s a balance. If you establish “anything goes,” as a baseline on the baseline, it’s not a sustainable set up.

But there will always be issues to fine tune after a reform makes a real impact. I’d argue that the NBA, while its process left something to be desired, has really found something with the tamped down foul calls. Pro basketball’s lessened cultural relevance in recent years inspired so many overlapping explanatory theories, all probably true to some degree. It’s not a monocausal situation, obviously, but the criminalizing of contact has likely been underrated as a problem. Now that contact is back, so too is tension, suspense and that feeling of having witnessed a wonderful war.

The allowance of contact has also revealed the abundance of three-pointers to be less of a drag on the game. Many, including myself at times, felt like the optimization of three-point shooting had made results too random to the point of feeling fake. That might be so on occasion, but when you combine a high proportion of threes with more rugged play, you get the sorts of exciting swings you see in NFL games. A ton of three point shooting in a high possession game feels decadent, but a ton of three point shooting in a nail-biting low possession one is compelling.

The NBA’s sneak reform has taught us a lot about basketball, not just in terms of what works, but also in terms of what it is. We like to act as though there’s just this unchanging thing called, “basketball” whenever we debate whether the 96 Bulls would beat the 2023 Nuggets or whatever. But a game is simply its rules, rules which apparently change.

Remember, the NBA chose the recent scoring binge era. Those pumped up results were often attributed to players being more skilled than ever before, but now and again, Silver would take credit for the shift. That was back when more scoring was assumed to be a positive, because it was positive relative to the scoring drought of the early 2000s. 

It turns out, there’s an optimal setting, probably hovering in the 100 point range. But it’s not as simple as hitting that mark. There’s a way we want basketball played, a balance to the selfishness, unselfishness and defensive resistance. When it all comes together, there’s nothing better in sports. I would argue that the Denver Nuggets are the current platonic ideal of how basketball should be played. Additionally, I’d argue that they just won a thriller that constituted the platonic ideal of how basketball should be called.