THE NBA WILL MAKE PUBLIC ITS REVIEWS OF CALLS IN THE LAST TWO MINUTES OF CLOSE GAMES. I have made a number of posts arguing that sports leagues should make public their reviews of every call made by referees during a game. My main argument has been that the refereeing is part of the narrative of the game. If I spend three hours watching a game, I want to know what happened. This Associated Press article on the ESPN site reports that: Starting Monday the NBA “will release play-by-play reports of all calls and relevant no-calls in the final minutes of close games….”
Making the reviews public should also shed light on the often-expressed view that referees call fouls differently in the last two minutes of a game and during playoff games. I posted here about the three sets of NBA rules.
I always doubted that this would happen. I think the change will be a success and that soon the reports on the other 46 minutes of a game will be made public as well.