Block or charge? Officials called both on the same play during Celtics-Timberwolves
Oshae Brissett and Karl-Anthony Towns collided. Officials were split. So, they called a rare double-foul.
The question typically goes like this: block or charge?
Collisions, especially in professional basketball games, can happen fast. Officials are tasked with determining what happened and making a call.
If the offensive player is at fault, a charge is called. If the defensive player is at fault, it’s a blocking foul. Usually, it’s one or the other.
But during the second quarter of Wednesday night’s Celtics-Timberwolves game, Boston’s Oshae Brissett and Minnesota’s Karl-Anthony Towns were whistled for a double-foul on a collision.
Brissett was sliding his feet in an attempt to take a charge, when Towns lowered his shoulder and barreled into him, knocking the Boston forward over. It appears the officials didn’t have a clear-cut agreement on which foul should be called, so they called both.
ESPN’s Tim Bontemps tweeted that he had never seen that type of collision turned into a double-foul before.
NBA Rule 12, section VI, part D states: “If a double foul occurs with neither team in possession, or when the ball is in the air on an unsuccessful field goal or free throw attempt, play will be resumed with a jump ball at the center circle between any two opponents in the game at that time.”
Towns and Al Horford had a jump ball on the next possession. Towns won the jump, and missed a 3-point attempt.
The double-foul call is just the latest controversial call involving the Celtics this week.
On Monday night, Jaylen Brown drew a foul with 3.2 seconds left in the game that ended up getting reversed. Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James tweeted that Brown clearly got hit in the head. Brown called for an investigation.
The NBA’s review of the last two minutes said that the reversal of the call was correct. Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said before the game he was frustrated by the call, but that it wasn’t the main reason why the Celtics lost on Monday night.
“Whether it’s right, wrong or indifferent, I think you have a right to be pissed about the situation,” Mazzulla said. “I don’t think that’s wrong. But, at the end of the day if we try to act like that’s the main reason why we lost then we’re not getting the perspective and the lesson that we need to.”
“To me, we have to focus on the third quarter, we shouldn’t be in that situation,” Mazzulla added. “So that’s kind of what we talked about [Wednesday] as a team. We should be pissed off that it didn’t go our way. It’s probably going to happen again. How do we handle it? You know, it’s just a thing that happens. More importantly, let’s not forget where we have to get better.”
The Celtics got another chance to see how they bounce back from a strange call with the double-foul on Brissett and Towns Wednesday night. If this week has been any indication, it won’t be their last.
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