What’s Really Behind the Shocking Drop in Referee Scoring Accuracy?
The story of the night was Mazzulla begging for a foul call and not getting it.
The 2024 parallel
This wouldn’t be the first time the league saw a midseason change in how tightly the games were being called.
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In early March 2024, I reported that teams were seeing a precipitous drop in scoring, anchored mostly by a sudden decline in free throws granted by officials. Were officials told to allow more physicality? There were weeks of denials, first to Marc Stein at The Stein Line and then from the league office headlined by then-executive vice president Joe Dumars and senior vice president of referee development and training Monty McCutchen, discrediting the notion on The Lowe Post on ESPN that they secretly decided to let the players play more.
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