- [Ryan] Something that I was thinking about recently
is it's a lot tougher to sneak around certain rules
in the NBA than it is in the NFL.
- [Seth] Why, just 'cause there's so few people?
- [Ryan] There's fewer people,
you're a lot closer to everyone including the officials.
For instance, too many men on the field in football.
You've got 22 guys on the field,
it's a little easier, it's a big field,
a little bit easier to kind of sneak on
and try and get away with something.
With basketball it's kind of right there.
- Yeah, the player to referee ratio is 10:3
which is pretty favorable for the refs.
It's like having a teacher with a huge class.
If you're in a little class you can't get up quite as much.
- So in football if you do have too many men on the field,
there's a clear penalty and protocol for what happens
if you get a play off illegally, right?
- [Seth] Right.
- [Ryan] In basketball, you can't have six men on the court.
You can only have five and if you do
end up playing with six men, you get a technical.
But for a long time the rule book
didn't have a provision for what to do
if you happen to score with six men.
And that actually came up in a game
and the referees just had to let the score stand.
And it happened recently.
They didn't change the rule until 2009.
- 2009?
- Yeah.
- 'Cause, okay usually if there's six men on the court,
which happens because you do
a lot of substitution in basketball,
they'll just kind of give you a warn, not even a warning,
they'll just be like hey, you got too many people,
someone get off the court.
No one actually gets penalized.
The refs just help you sort things out.
Usually with the help of your opponent
pointing out, hey they have too many people out here
and no one wants that.
- Yeah, it's more of a clerical thing.
Hey what are you doing?
Where are you gonna play?
- Yeah, which is nice.
The refs don't have to do anything to get you in trouble,
they just sort that out for you before the play starts.
But I guess you're talking about they missed that?
- Right, so the way that the rules were structured
for a long time if the refs just didn't notice
you had six men and you happened to score,
you got to keep that score.
'Cause there was no provision to undo it.
And they certainly were not going to on the spot
be like well I guess it doesn't count!
- [Seth] Oh so there was some incentive to hide players.
Because maybe at some point it did happen intentionally
and we still don't know.
- It's possible.
- [Seth] You know, maybe some team in the 70's
was quietly having a sixth guy hop out
from under a trap door in the floor
and they were just so good, the job went perfectly
and the authorities never noticed
and to this day they've gotten away with it.
There's like some game that the Sixers won in 1974
and were like, we were playing with nine dudes
the whole time but we just kept them moving.
- [Ryan] Yeah, ,it's sort of like a point heist.
Like if you've got 'em in a point of people moving around
and they don't notice, you get away with the points.
- Yeah, just kind of bum rush the court with people
and they can never really count you.
- Yeah, if you just load up with seven or eight guys
and quick jam it, you got those points for free baby!
- Hell yeah!
- And the other team gets a tech, sure
but you got two or three points
you're just walking away with.
So like I said, this didn't come up for a long time.
It wasn't an issue until 2008.
It happened in a game when the Celtics
were in Portland playing the Trail Blazers.
And the Trail Blazers were inbounding the ball
after a time out with 10 seconds left in the first half.
- [Seth] Okay.
- [Ryan] And for a full seven seconds
after they inbound the ball, the referees do not notice
that there are six Trail Blazers on the court
instead of five.
You know who does notice is Kevin Garnett
and the rest of the Celtics who are spending
that whole possession trying to defend
but also trying to get the referees attention
and say hey there are six guys here, what is going on?
But before anyone could actually do that,
Travis Outlaw scores a layup
and the referees are getting screamed at by Kevin Garnett
and they have to just be like we didn't see it
and the score has to stand.
- (chuckling) I love that of all people
to be on the losing end of this,
it's Garnett and the Celtics 'cause it's this
super fine-tuned, aggressive defense.
You have the most volcanic possible player in Kevin Garnett
dealing with this impropriety. (chuckling)
The Blazers too.
Someone's like wow, I'm much more open than usual.
I know we called a play but it's not this good of a set
that I'm just completely alone.
You said this is out of a time out?
- Right.
- And so Bayless, I guess is the sixth person.
I guess what Nate McMillan must have done,
he drew up a play for five people
and it's a nice little set you can tell,
and he just forgot that someone has to both
inbound the ball and then participate in a play?
- Right.
- It could be that or it could be that Jerryd Bayless
who I think was a rookie this year,
just kind of like wandered out there not really sure
and he was, you know he didn't really
have the authority to ask anyone
without feeling like it was awkward.
So he decided, I might as well just play.
- [Ryan] His body language is like,
I'm pretty sure I f’ed up, (Seth laughing)
but I don't know how or why.
- [Seth] It's funny that you can't see his face,
but he still has kind of like a sheepish back.
- [Ryan] He doesn't move.
(laughing) His sheepish back.
- You can tell he's done something wrong.
And Nate McMillan too!
His face is the face of a man who's like,
“Aw man I just messed up on television.
I need to act like that was somehow not my fault.”
- So we've seen on this show before
there are a lot of scenarios where
in the off season a league will tweak a rule
to keep something like this from happening again.
And then there are some scenarios
where they will immediately be like,
we have to change this now before the end of the season.
This is for sure one of those.
This happened on December 30, 2008 by March of '09
there was a new rule on the books
that ironed out all of this shit
so that it doesn't happen again.
I think it's Rule 12A Section 3
in technical fouls and stiff like that?
Basically what happens is when the referees notice
that there's an extra man on the floor,
the opposing team can either accept the penalty
and erase it or just not acknowledge it
and the game kind of continues.
- So if things went, but you know if the sixth man worked,
and that advantage was actually exploited
then you can basically retcon,
you can undo that timeline and rewrite history
where things were fair.
- Yeah
- That makes sense.
- It's one of the few times in an NBA game
you can actually reverse the clock a little bit
and go back in time. - Yeah, start over.
I guess that's really the only way to deal with that.
One other way would be like, all right
you guys can have six guys for
the next 30 seconds or whatever.
- [Ryan] I think that's an amazing idea.
I think what that would lead to
is just constantly stacking extra guys
until you end up with a football basketball game.
- [Seth] Yeah, 12 on 12 NBA basketball.
- [Ryan] Sure.
- [Seth] Just like a floor teeming with people.
Throbbing massive human flesh.
That's what basketball has always needed to be.
- Sure, there's not nearly enough guys on the floor.
I think set it up like football.
(laughing) Have a line of scrimmage,
have 11 guys facing 11 guys,
and each play is like a segmented piece of time.
The clock stops and you get to reset.
I think it would be great!
- You hike the basketball, the Celtics would love that!
Rondo and Garnett used to do that
at the beginning of every game, perfect.
- It would be perfect.
- But still only three refs so that they are
completely underwater and have absolutely no authority
over the game because there are 24 players all around.
- Right and way more room for sneakiness.
Which would be perfect.
- Which is what we're going for.
- Exactly.