This gets said a lot when it’s getting close to the end of a quarter and a team can give one more foul before putting the other team in the bonus. My question is, why do they usually give it? It doesn’t seem to do the defense any good and it gives a player a needless foul. What’s the thinking?
A free time-out, I think.
I’m not sure that I’d agree that they usually give it, as it is typically only done by the team that is battling from behind. It allows them to subsequently send someone to the free throw line (oftentimes a carefully selected someone, who happens to be a poor shooter), thus stopping the clock while hopefully watching the fouled player miss the free throws.
So, stopped clock, and typically a change of possession, since the defending team has a great rebounding advantage on a missed free throw.
It means the offensive team has to restart their offense, and do so with less time on the shot clock. The latter is an advantage to the defense. The former may be an advantage sometimes.
If less than 14 seconds remain on the shot clock, I believe it resets to 14 after a common foul.
But yeah, essentially you just want the offense to have to reset. There’s a better chance of forcing a turnover on an inbound than a LeBron iso.
Point is, you’d rather have some guy who shoots 55% from the free-throw line trying to make those baskets then actually getting a dunk plus a foul on that play. The difference is potentially only getting zero or one point as opposed to getting more, like two or three points. Then my team gets to shoot. Usually it is a good tactic.
“Good tactic” might be misleading: I would instead call it a “least-bad tactic”. Doing it will probably leave you worse off than you were before… but it gives you a chance, albeit a relatively small one, to recover. It’s a desperation move, like the Hail Mary pass in football.
Many of the responses in this thread are talking past the OP. Nars isn’t talking about fouling to force free throws at the end of a game. He’s talking about using the non-bonus “foul to give”, when you have it, at the end of any quarter, regardless of score.
As Barkis says, you want to disrupt the offense and force it to reset. That’s all.
Oh, true. There is also the situation where the shot clock isn’t in play, however (so there will still be less time on the clock for the offense).
True. It also allows the defense to be more aggressive going for a steal, as a foul doesn’t mean automatic free throws.
Re: The shot clock reset - AFAIK, it only resets to 14 seconds on a jump ball caused by the offense. If the defense forces a jump ball, it only resets to 5 seconds. Fouls don’t cause a reset (again, AFAIK)
I guess it depends on the foul. If it’s a technical foul, fragrant foul or common foul during an inbound play, it resets to 14.
Interestingly, it also resets to 14 for “infection control,” which apparently just means blood clean-up.
Funny how early-90s fears (and, I guess, realities) of HIV infection, in this case stemming from a single well-known case, can be enshrined for decades in things like an NBA rulebook.
Imagine the inbounding team is down by 1 with 2.1 seconds left on the clock. Player inbounds the ball, dribbles right and is fouled immediately by the defense. Since there is a foul to give, there are no free throws, but the offense now has to rebound again with, say, 0.9 seconds left.