Doc Rivers was right about so much in the Clippers' epic first-round series against the Spurs, especially this:
"It was all basketball," he said. "There wasn't any crap, there weren't any fights. It was just two teams -- think about it -- just playing basketball. … It was clean, solid, beautiful basketball by both teams."
Well, on second thought, he was almost right about that. The one blemish in that incredible series, the one thing everyone involved would take back if they were completely honest, was the intentional fouling strategy employed -- well within the rules -- by the Spurs.
And now that the Clippers are set to face the Houston Rockets in the Western Conference Semifinals, brace yourselves for the ultimate hack-a-thon.
Hack-a-Dwight. Hack-a-DeAndre. Hack my FiOS so I can fast-forward through it all in real time.
Prediction: The intentional fouling strategy will be so prevalent in this Rockets-Clippers series it finally will provide evidence the competition committee needs to recommend doing away with it. In fact, the movement already is very much under way.
A rule change that would punish teams for intentionally fouling so severely as to eradicate the scourge from NBA games already is on the unofficial agenda for the competition committee's July meeting in Las Vegas, a league source told CBSSports.com.
The person, who is familiar with the discussions, estimated the chances of a rule change in some form being recommended to the Board of Governors, passed and implemented next season at about 85 percent.
By the time the Rockets and Clippers are done hacking each other into oblivion for two weeks on national TV, that percentage will be closer to 100, in my opinion.
The current rule only forbids teams from intentionally fouling away from the ball in the last two minutes of a game.
But coaches, always looking for the slightest edge in closely contested playoff games, have peppered the league's officiating department with questions about loopholes in the rule. Can you intentionally foul before the ball is even inbounded, so as not to run any time off the clock? (Yes; the Spurs did this against the Clippers.) Does a player have to be standing inbounds in order to be fouled? (No; the Clippers can't hide Jordan out of bounds to avoid a foul.)
One coach even asked the league if the player being intentionally fouled can simultaneously foul the fouler, so as to create offsetting fouls with no free throws. Seriously? The officials have enough real fouls in the course of normal action to worry about. They're supposed to make a split-second judgment on simultaneous fake fouls, too?
Another problem for officials occurs when the ball is being advanced and a defensive player runs the other way to intentionally foul a player who is still near the opposite basket. (This happened in Game 5 of the Clippers-Spurs series, when Matt Bonner ran the wrong way to foul Jordan, stopping a Clippers fast-break opportunity.) So the trailing official, who is supposed to be watching the action in the frontcourt for fouls or violations, has to look away and call a fake foul in the backcourt? It's completely ridiculous.
Rather than outlawing intentional fouling, the more likely scenario is for a consequence to be written into the rules. For example, an intentional foul away from the ball would result in a technical foul shot and possession. Thus, the end of Hack-a-Whoever as we've known it.
Rivers, who sits on the competition committee, has acknowledged arguments for both sides, but said during the Clippers-Spurs series, "I've got a strong feeling next year, we won't have to deal with this." Gregg Popovich, who employed the strategy liberally against Jordan, said, "Intellectually, I don't feel bad about it. But sight-wise, it's God awful."
And wouldn't it have been God awful if the strategy, and the Clippers' response, had decided this brilliant series? It almost did. After Rivers removed Jordan from the game when the Spurs started intentionally fouling him in the fourth quarter, the Clippers got mauled on the offensive glass, resulting in second, third and fourth opportunities as San Antonio built a late five-point lead.
Commissioner Adam Silver has remained mostly neutral on the issue, most recently in an interview on Bleacher Report Radio on Sunday.
"This is one where I really am torn," Silver said. "I don't like it. Aesthetically, it's not good, I think, for a fan to watch it -- even though I find the strategy fascinating ... I'm not saying we shouldn't make the change. But I think we've got to be really careful in how we go about doing it."
Would it be in the best interest of the game for players to learn how to make free throws? Of course.
But it's also in the best interest of the game for the best basketball players on the planet to decide playoff games by playing basketball -- not engaging in chicanery.
Since no change is possible until next season at the earliest, I have an idea: Couldn't Rivers and Kevin McHale, two old Celtics who were central to the 2007 trade that sent Kevin Garnett from Minnesota to Boston, make another deal?
If you don't Hack-a-Dwight, I won't Hack-a-DeAndre. Problem solved -- at least until it can be solved for good.
