This play perhaps best sums up the NBA’s announced change to what referees can review when a coach challenges an out-of-bounds play. During the Western Conference Finals, Dallas‘ Kyrie Irving reached and made a mistake Minnesota‘s Jaden McDanielswhich caused McDaniels to lose the ball out of bounds. On the court, the referees did not call the foul but called the ball out on Irving. Dallas challenged it, but by the rules, the referees could not change their call to foul Irving, all they could do was change the call to say the ball went out on McDaniels, a successful challenge that gave the Mavericks the ball. (After the game, the referees admitted they had messed up the call but said there was nothing they could do about it except say it was Dallas’ ball.)
That’s no longer the case, thanks to the league’s announced expanded use of the coach’s challenge, referees could change their call to a foul on the play.
There are three conditions: 1) The foul must be committed by a player involved in the out-of-bounds play (and not elsewhere on the court); 2) The officials will look at the distance between the foul and the out-of-bounds play; 3) How much time elapsed between the foul and the out-of-bounds play?
The league is trying to keep this very specific, but it came up a few times last season. It’s not going to lead to further revisions, as that can only happen in a coach’s challenge (although those challenges can take longer in those cases).
The rule change was recommended by the NBA’s Competition Committee, made up of players, coaches, owners, basketball team and league executives and referees, which forwarded it to the Board of Governors, which approved it.
