In order to give a little background about the game during basketball season, this is the second – and final – installment in a series about the history and rules of basketball. Click here for part one.
All sports, whether played with a ball, pins, darts, marbles, bones or rocks, come with a set of rules by which the game should be played as well as a set of penalties if the game is not played the way it is prescribed.
Basketball is no different. Played on a court with two baskets hanging from posts placed on either ends of the court, the basic game consists of two teams of five players each, who contend against one another to score points with a round ball that can be bounced, or dribbled, down the court.
Of course the game is not as simple as it sounds. Rules abound to keep the players from pushing and shoving one another while taking shots, or while dribbling down the court, and there is a fine line between roughly manhandling the opposing team and being legitimately aggressive in fighting for the ball or defending the goal from another player’s scoring attempt.
The original 13 rules were pretty clear, but have evolved over the decades and changed; here’s the highlights of these first rules; originally, the ball could be thrown in any direction with one or both hands, but the fist can’t be used. (This is still true today). A player can’t run with the ball. He must throw it from the spot where he has caught it. You can’t use your body to trap or hold the ball. There is no shouldering, holding, striking, pushing, or tripping allowed; if it happens, it counts as a foul.
Now, one still cannot use the body to trap or hold the ball, but bouncing the ball down the court instead of just running with it has become the normal way to move the ball down the court. Early on, points were scored when the ball was thrown into the basket and stays there (this harkens back to the original peach-basket construct of the first baskets in use). When the ball goes out of bounds, it’s thrown in by the last player who touched it; this rule has remained the same. The referee judges fouls, when the ball is in play, in bounds, to whom it belongs (possession), and keeps the time of the game. Time of play used to consist of two 15 minute halves, with a five minute halftime.
But nowadays, the game is made up of four 12 minute quarters with a 15 minute half time between the second and third quarter. Lastly, and most obviously, the team who has scored the most points at the end of the game time wins the match.
Historically, when the game first began, no substitutions at all were allowed, and then one substitution could be made, then two, and then unlimited substitutions were permitted. Also, the restriction that forbade a coach to address his players was lifted as well, and coaches can now discuss the game with their players during time outs. Which leads into a discussion of fouls, the most heinous of sins one can engage in during basketball. Interestingly, an infraction being experienced in some professional basketball games today … the technical foul, which can be brought on by a coach being abusive or inappropriate from the sidelines during gameplay … carries with it a two shot penalty for such behavior.
Besides technical fouls, there is the personal foul, which is very common, seemingly complex, and far more rampant than the technical foul. The personal foul is defined as illegal contact with an opponent. Charging and blocking are two relatively well defined forms of fouling. Charging is physical contact between an offensive player and a defensive player; the defensive player must establish a position of guarding in the path of the offensive player. If contact is made, the officials can cite an offensive charge. Also, a defensive player cannot draw an offensive charge in the restricted zone, a four foot area around the goal.
Blocking, on the other hand, is physical contact between an offensive and defensive player when the defensive player interrupts the offensive player as the offensive player is in the act of shooting a goal. Also, holding, pushing, tripping, actual physical impeding of the player, or even putting a hand on an offensive player if foul play is suspected, is cause for a foul. While these things sound self-evident, a spectator may become very confused while watching a game. But if the referees are consistent, and the teams are both well-grounded in offensive and defensive basics, one can begin to see different types of blocking and charging offenses.
In basketball, these personal fouls result in free throws, which is why fouling is such an undesirable infraction to make. The player who is fouled is allowed one to two shots at the goal (or the basket), and, if seven or more personal fouls are called against a team in amateur games, from then on out, the fouled player can take up to three shots at the goal, provided he or she makes the first sequence of shots into the goal.
Personal fouls are more exciting, as they are action-driven and result in scoring back and forth, if both teams have practiced their free throwing. But technical fouls exist, and can undermine a basketball club’s effectiveness on the court if certain “house-cleaning” regulations are not observed.
The list of technical fouls is long and includes such non-game play infractions as failure to give lineup data to the score-keepers, having more than five players on the court simultaneously, engaging in behavior that delays the game, calling an improper number of timeouts – even occupying the wrong players’ bench is considered grounds for a technical foul.
Others include wearing the wrong number on a jersey or changing a jersey number during a game and not reporting the change to the score-keepers. Grasping, striking or slapping the basket and causing it to vibrate is a technical foul as well as placing a hand on the backboard to gain an advantage in scoring or blocking.
Others include interfering with the ball after scoring, or failing to pass the ball to the official when called for a foul; gesturing improperly or in a way that is disrespectful, or attempting a free throw illegally, or entering the court as a substitute without informing the score-keepers, blocking an opponent’s line of sight, or using vulgar, obscene, or abusive language on the court. All of these technical fouls carry at least two free throw attempts against the guilty team’s infraction. In extreme cases, double technical fouls can be called, and if a referee deems it appropriate, the referee has the power to forfeit the game in favor of the non-fouling, or less-fouling team.
