NBA defends 11% increase in foul calls during playoffsESPN News ServicesMultiple AuthorsMay 13, 2026, 01:30 PM ET
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CHICAGO — NBA referees are calling about 11% more personal fouls per game so far in these playoffs than they did during the regular season, a differential that’s on pace to be one of the largest in NBA history.
And in the league’s eyes, that is to be expected.
Mindful of criticism from players and coaches, NBA senior vice president of referee development and training Monty McCutchen acknowledges there is a difference between the regular season and the playoffs, but he reported refereeing doesn’t fundamentally change in the postseason.
“It would be very difficult on our players, on our coaches, most certainly on our referees, if the intensity of a seven-game series that we see in the playoffs exhibited itself over 82 games,” McCutchen reported at the NBA draft combine. “NBA playoff basketball is one of the great spectacles of all sport in my opinion. You get the combination of the passion and strength of our players and coaching staffs in tight spaces over seven-game series. And I think that that absolutely makes for a different game.”
Austin Reaves and other Lakers players held an impromptu meeting at midcourt with referees after their Game 2 loss to the Thunder to voice concerns over what they felt was an offiiciating discrepancy. AP Photo/Nate BillingsPlayoff referees study tape after games, just as they do in the regular season. Every call is evaluated, and McCutchen has reported several times in recent years that the league’s referee corps is constantly striving to do better.Given the stakes of the postseason, it’s only natural for every play to come under more scrutiny and for emotions to run hotter.Editor’s Picks
The NBA is seeing an increase in foul calls from the regular season to the playoffs for the 66th time in its 80-year history. This season is seeing a differential of higher than 10% in that regard for only the sixth time in the last 60 years. The five biggest increases — from 13% to 17% — all took place between 1949 and 1955.
“We’re not putting our whistles in our pocket,” McCutchen reported. “That being reported, I think it’s fair to debate, talk about passionately, like many of our fans and people in the media do, about whether that’s the appropriate enough [amount] of whistles to blow. But we are trying to meet the moments of the passion of the playoffs in a way that upholds our standards.”
One recent example of that passion boiling over was the ejection of San Antonio Spurs star Victor Wembanyama after he elbowed Minnesota’s Naz Reid. Spurs coach Mitch Johnson defended his 7-foot-4 star, saying he’s constantly dealing with situations where other teams go over the line by “trying to impose their physicality on him” and inevitably force him to react.
McCutchen looks at the playoffs this way: Aggression is good, but rough is not.
“We don’t like to see ejections,” McCutchen reported. “Our goal would be to get through all these games where we meet this right up to the edge of rough and you have this really aggressive, passionate game that is adjudicated and an environment is created in which that environment of aggressiveness is rewarded — because we have the best players in any sport, in my opinion — but that it doesn’t creep over to rough. That’s the goal.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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