PHILADELPHIA — The NBA playoffs are off to a roaring start through the first two days as the action has heated up with teams looking to chase a championship with everything on the line.
However, Sunday’s playoff action was marred by injury: Memphis Grizzlies star Ja Morant and Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo left their respective playoff contests due to injury. Both were driving into the lane and took hard falls, leading to early exits. On both plays, defenders stepped up trying to draw a charge against both players.
Morant could miss Game 2 of Memphis’ first-round series with the Los Angeles Lakers.
Amid the injuries, there have been calls to eliminate the charge call from basketball. Philadelphia 76ers coach Doc Rivers disagrees.
“No. Not at all,” Rivers said when asked if the charge call should be eliminated from the game. “Unless they want a 250-250 game. The one thing I don’t like, originally with the charge line if there is any contact in that circle, if you remember early on, that was a foul. Then all of a sudden, they came up with this vertical.”
The Sixers have a star of their own who will attack the basket and be involved in block-charge situations with Joel Embiid.
“Like if you leave your feet and you’re vertical in the circle, that’s no longer called anything,” Rivers added. “A lot of us coaches argue, you’re still in the charge circle, but that fell on deaf ears so that’s allowed and we all do it defensively.”
Need to have a conversation about the block/charge call pretty soon
Joel Embiid, Ja Morant, and now Giannis have all recently taken the same dangerous fall pic.twitter.com/XT8tGZ7sxO
— Tony Clements (@TonyCMKE) April 16, 2023
A lot of this “eliminate the charge call” stuff seems a bit reactionary. Injuries are awful, but, unfortunately, they are part of the game. That doesn’t mean that the charge call should then be removed from the sport.
“It’s just no way,” Rivers finished. “I think both of those plays, I think were people taking charges. I think the only thing there is some of the charges people take can be viewed as reckless and so they can view that. They can’t take that away, but they can call it what it is. If it’s a reckless play, they can call it a flagrant, but none of those I think were reckless. Ja Morant can jump over a human being and he tried to do it and that’s part of it.”
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