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The OKC Thunder might feel ashamed today.

But as Robin Williams said to Matt Damon, “It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault.”

Yes, it’s hard to blame the players for intentionally fouling Houston center Omer Asik seven times in two minutes last night, plus one other intentional foul that wasn’t called and two other shooting fouls in the fourth quarter.

The players were following orders: Stop the game because we don’t like how it’s going; don’t compete on the floor because you’re not good enough to win this playoff home game against the No. 8 seed; do not try for steals and blocks and stops; let’s keep our own crowd out of the game; let’s not get out and run and try to come back with the second-best player in the world doing what he does best; let’s not play basketball for a while because the Rockets are better at basketball tonight.

So it’s not their fault. They never had a real chance. They never had a real chance at a thriller of a comeback win. They never had a chance to do the thing they’ve trained their entire lives to do. They didn’t even get 48 minutes to show fans watching in the arena and on TNT and around the world that they could win Game 5 on talent.

How many times will we get to see Kevin Durant try to lead a series-clinching comeback win in the final five minutes of a nationally televised Game 5? Not many, and that rare opportunity last night was taken from us, and from him. With OKC stopping the clock and letting Houston set up its defense, Durant didn’t score a single point in the fourth quarter.

And it’s hard to blame Thunder coach Scott Brooks for trying to win (even if the strategy itself was dumb).

Can somebody explain to me why this hack–a–stuff is fun to watch? @hoopidea

— Michael DeCicco (@mdecicco17) May 2, 2013

@hoopidea change the rule on the "hack-a-(insert player here)" strategy. This isn't fun ball for anyone to watch! Especially w/ 5+ min left!

— Daren Simmons (@DarenSimmons24) May 2, 2013

But it’s easy to blame a system that puts the game in the hands of the coaches and referees and the rulebook instead of the players.

The league has an enormous amount of intentional fouling of all kinds. The league continues to say it has the best athletes in the world.

It’s amazing that it would reward fouling at the expense of those athletes.

Obviously, the entire sport and the league’s reputation for excitement are built on the fact that those great athletes can do amazing things -- and built on those amazing things happening during live play and not at the free throw line or in a boardroom somewhere with the suits making rules that give coaches more control over the game.

And while physical play is to be expected when bodies compete for space and the ball and baskets, there simply is no reason to reward intentional violence and intentional fouling. There is no reason to encourage coaches to take the game out of the hands of their players because the rulebook gives them another way to “win.”

The NBA is the greatest basketball league in the world, without a doubt. Sooner or later, it will stop rewarding intentional violence and intentional fouls, as other basketball leagues have done.

You often hear, especially in the playoffs, we should let the players decide the game. Amen.

On video, it looks like strategy.

Stephen Curry, the NBA's newest and slightest superstar, who has been killing the Nuggets on ankles so brittle he recently tweeted "no ankle left unturned lol," was minding his own business, jogging through the lane three-and-a-half minutes into Game 5, when the Nuggets' Kenneth Faried stepped backward, directly into Curry's tender foot.

It wasn't an isolated event.

"Three or four plays in the first four minutes," estimates Curry, who says "of course" the Nuggets were trying to rough him up.

I knew this was coming. Intentional fouls, I've been increasingly realizing, are the go-to method of controlling superstars. Curry, with a skinny build and weak ankles, is more vulnerable than anybody. As he emerged as a player who could decide a series, the clock was ticking. He would get roughed up. It made too much sense.

"Some dirty plays early," pointed out Curry's coach, Mark Jackson, who later said this of Faried: "Take a look ... the screen on Curry by the foul line is a shot at his ankle. Clearly. That can't be debated. ... I've got inside information that some people don't like that brand of basketball and they clearly didn't co-sign it. So they wanted me to know they had no parts in what was taking place."

Jackson -- whose team has committed all kinds of hard fouls in this series (ask Andre Iguodala about Andrew Bogut) and this season, including some that caused injury -- spoke passionately in defense of hard play, and even hard fouls. But he stressed it was important for both teams to go to the trouble to avoid injuring each other.

On TNT later, Charles Barkley explained: "I've been on teams where you say ... this dude's too comfortable. Every time you get a chance, hit him. You want him to be thinking about 'Where am I going to get hit at next time?' You can't go out there like you're at a shootaround."

Shaquille O'Neal heartily co-signed, saying Jackson went too far in calling such a thing "dirty," insisting instead it's just the nature of the game. (Every retired player will tell you it was way rougher when they played. That's what they do, even though there's little evidence the game was really more physical back then.)

Here's the thing, though: Forget the teams for a second. Forget rooting for Denver or Golden State. Forget the tail-chasing debate about what's "dirty."

Put yourselves in the position of the people who are charged with keeping players safe: The NBA. They're the ones who have fallen asleep on the job here.

If you're the NBA, or any fan of basketball, you want nothing more than for Curry -- the most exciting player in these playoffs -- to keep creating artistic moments that fire the imagination. You want to see skilled players doing the skilled things that make this league unique, and distinct from MMA. You want this for every player.

In short, you don't want to see Curry play his best in Game 6 only if he proves his ankles can withstand intentional attack. (We already know they probably can't ... he has missed dozens of games from plays with no contact at all.) You want him at his best in Game 6 because the other team is not "hitting him every chance they get."

And we could have that, right now.

Teams are roughing up opposing stars because it works. It works because many intentional fouls are missed entirely by the referees, and those that are noticed, even dangerous ones, are punished too lightly to make it stop.

Barkley and O'Neal played in an NBA where there was no strategic reason not to rough a guy like Curry up. You "hit" him 10 times a night as a team, you get called for four or five. That's the cost. The benefit is he is intimidated, fearing for safety, and diminished as a scoring threat all night long, for every play of his night. The benefit is bigger than the cost! Someone with SportVu data can probably do the math: Six or seven extra free throws is a small price to pay for a dozen extra hits -- many uncalled -- that result in a cowed, hobbled or injured opposing star. That's a fantastic trade for the more aggressive team.

That's "playoff basketball."

No coach will go on record against it. They want the ability to hit players early and often, both because it's a valuable tactic for a team and because it's a particularly valuable tactic for coaches. Intentional fouls take power from superstars -- who'd dominate even more without fear of injury -- and give it to he who can order up the hits.

The problem, though, is that it's 2013, and the league has more than enough tools, right now, to clean all of this up. Getting away scot-free with a lot of cheap shots is a key reason this is a winning strategy. But why, in a world where every court is encircled by cameras, where everyone at home benefits from truly instant HD replay from all kinds of angles, would the people making the key decisions of the game not have real-time access to that crucial information? Why would we shrug and say "we can't catch 'em all" when we totally can?

You have no idea how many times a night, thanks to the magic of watching ESPN or TNT in HD with a remote control in my hand, I know precisely whether there was a foul or not, even as the referees have no idea. It's crazy. And it makes the NBA look crazy. Why do the people with the beer and the popcorn on the couch have better real-time information than the people making game-deciding calls?

NBA referees are the best in the world, but everybody thinks they're terrible because of this. And meanwhile, the game is not being called nearly as accurately, quickly or comprehensively as it could be.

My HoopIdea: Get away from stopping the game for video review. And graduate to a courtside referee or two, with as many TV screens as would be helpful, showing every angle imaginable. This video referee crew would constantly review all the best angles of what is happening right now as it happens. They might be a few seconds behind real time if they need to rewind briefly, but not much. They'd essentially know everything video could know, without having to stop the game to huddle around a single monitor. And when they know something the referees on the court missed, they'd be able to tell them at the next dead ball, or even sooner.

The plays where the video makes the referees look foolish ... they're usually at dead balls anyway.

Before you tell me this is loco, realize the league already does this. They review the games after they're over, for instance a whole day later. And then they "correct" the referees' work when it was egregiously wrong, either by apologizing for a missed call, and then warning, fining or suspending somebody for a flop, a dirty play, fighting or anything else.

I'm baffled by the delay. Players are hitting each other as part of team-wide strategy -- endorsed by Barkley, O'Neal and oddly, even Mark Jackson -- because they help them win games.

As long as the real punishment only comes after the game, there are still wins to be had for teams who are beating people up. Whatever the NBA believes can be gleaned from video, glean it when it's still useful to decide the game, when it's still useful to keep up with the fans at home, and to make the strategy of Tackle Basketball stop working.

The league's executives, from David Stern to Stu Jackson, have been clear they do not want teams taking the floor planning to hurt each other. Time to do something about it.

A press release from the NBA:

The NBA has set the league’s anti-flopping disciplinary schedule to be used during the 2013 Playoffs, NBA Executive Vice President, Basketball Operations Stu Jackson announced today.

“Flopping” is defined as any physical act that appears to have been intended to cause the referees to call a foul on another player. The primary factor in determining whether a player committed a flop is whether his physical reaction to contact with another player is inconsistent with what would reasonably be expected given the force or direction of the contact.

The NBA’s anti-flopping rule, adopted at the beginning of the 2012-13 season, had 24 violations during the 2012-13 regular season. Fourteen players received warnings while five players received a $5,000 fine for violating the anti-flopping rule twice.

Physical acts that constitute legitimate basketball plays (such as moving to a spot in order to draw an offensive foul) and minor physical reactions to contact are not deemed to be flops.

Any player who is determined to have committed a flop during the 2013 Playoffs will be subject to the following:

• Violation 1: $5,000 fine
• Violation 2: $10,000 fine
• Violation 3: $15,000 fine
• Violation 4: $30,000 fine

If a player violates the anti-flopping rule five times or more, he will be subject to discipline that is reasonable under the circumstances, including an increased fine and/or suspension.

This is not so different from the league's regular-season anti-flopping program, although a key difference is that in the regular season every player's first offense was granted with only a warning. Now the fines start immediately and quickly get steep.

Whether or not such a program is effective depends entirely on how active the league is in noticing and punishing flops.

In the regular season they spotted one flop for every 51 games played. (That's one for roughly every 25,000 minutes of player time on the court.) At that rate, the whole playoffs will feature a grand total of two flops. In other words, the entire anti-flopping effort would amount to a couple of $5,000 holes in a couple of guys' wallets -- but no real need for any flopper to change strategy.

There are other ways the flopping program could be better. Why wait until after the game is over to review three seconds of video that affect the game in real time? That delay means, for instance, that effectively there are no flopping rules worth worrying about for any team facing elimination. Or, picture Game 7 of the NBA Finals, when any flop would be punished next season. Flop away, gentlemen.

And finally, I'm not a fan of any of these NBA rules (for instance, with technical totals) that accumulate through the playoffs. The risk of a five-flops-in-the-playoffs suspension is effectively zero for every NBA player -- except maybe those on very top contending teams that expect to play a couple dozen games. If you play for the Thunder, Spurs or Heat, in other words, you're facing anti-flopping, anti-technical and anti-flagrant pressure no other team has. It also means that if anyone is to get suspended, it's most likely in the Finals, when fans would most appreciate having them on the court.

Hardly seems like the smartest set up, but of course it's better than no punishment at all -- which is how the NBA treated flops before this season.

Bravo, Slate, for this wonderful bit of Flop theater.

LOS ANGELES -- Give the Los Angeles Lakers and Houston Rockets their due, the two teams played a frenetic, de facto playoff game. The Rockets ran the floor with abandon, fanning out in transition like birds in flight, and injecting the game with even more chaos than normal. The Lakers played a gutty game despite shooting the ball terribly. Whatever the Lakers lacked in proficiency, Pau Gasol made up for in moxie -- 17 points, 20 rebounds, 11 dimes. Dwight Howard’s presence underneath neutered the Rockets’ drive-and-kick game, as the Lakers prevailed 99-95 in overtime.

All 30 NBA teams were in action on Wednesday night, but “in action” is a term of art in April. The roster of notables who sat out the final night of the regular season: LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh, David West, Paul George, Kevin Garnett, J.R. Smith, Roy Hibbert, Jason Terry, Jason Kidd, Al Horford, Tyson Chandler, Josh Smith, Nicolas Batum, Jeff Teague, Kyle Korver, Wesley Matthews and Goran Dragic. That doesn't include players such as Kobe Bryant, Kenneth Faried and Danilo Gallinari, each of whom suffered late-season injuries, nor Tim Duncan and Tony Parker, who left a very tight game in the third quarter, never to return.

Apart from the Lakers-Rockets buzzfest, the Utah Jazz played a sudden-death game at Memphis, while the Los Angeles Clippers and Sacramento Kings clashed in a competitive game at Sleep Train Arena. Beyond that, it was formalities.

A few of these absences have been chalked up to injuries of unknown severity, but most of the names on the list are game-ready. Wednesday night was the most egregious example of NBA truancy, but this isn’t a recent development. For the better part of the past few weeks, teams comfortable with their playoff seedings as well as many of those who can improve draft position by tanking have been holding key players out of games.

NBA coaches and organizations aren’t the culprits here. They’ve been charged with very clear objectives -- win meaningful games, mitigate risk in meaningless ones and build the franchise with young talent. In turn, they make the personnel decisions that help achieve these goals. Injuries are a too-common occurrence in the NBA. There’s also plenty of evidence to suggest that players who log heavy minutes are less likely to win in June. For teams outside the playoff race, a dreadful April can catapult them up the draft board.

All that being the case, what possible motivation does an NBA team have for exposing their best players to exhaustion or injury? For a team locked into a playoff position, the best strategy is to hermetically seal stars in bubble wrap until the games matter again.

We can’t incentivize certain behavior, then be irritated when people act on those motivations. So how do we deter the rash of DNPs we see every April, when the NBA schedule is three parts filler to one part substance?

There's simply no fool-proof way to wipe out ShamBall entirely from the latter portions of the NBA schedule, but there are some smart measures to consider:

• Shorten the season: Two points here: (1) Each game shaved off the schedule increases the probability that the race for seeding will be more competitive. As a rule, a greater number of games means greater distance between teams in the standings. Most years, a 44-, 58- or 72-game season would likely create a jumble, and jumbles are good for competition. While there would certainly be seasons when a top seed (or any other seed) could be locked up early, it's simply tougher to do with fewer games. (2) There's a reason these guys are resting, they're exhausted and banged up. Fewer games mean fewer minutes, which would diminish the need for rest or healing.
• Stop giving teams a reason to tank: The current lottery system rewards failure, plain and simple. So long as that's the case, the bottom-feeders -- many of whom are no joy to watch even when they're trying -- are thinking about probabilities that improve with each loss. There are several ways to go here, ranging from the elimination of the lottery (or the draft, but I'm dreaming) to a lottery that includes all 30 teams. It could be unweighted, or even calibrated to reward success after a team has been mathematically eliminated from the playoff picture.
• Give the Bill Simmons Plan a go: "[S]tage a weeklong, single-elimination, 16-team tournament between the nonplayoff teams for the 8-seeds. (No conferences, just No. 15 through No. 30 seeded in order.) The higher seeds would host the first two rounds (eight games in all) from Sunday through Wednesday; the last two rounds (The Final FourGotten) would rotate every year in New York or Los Angeles on Friday night and Sunday afternoon, becoming something of a Fun Sports Weekend along the lines of All-Star Weekend. Friday night's winners would clinch playoff berths. Sunday's winner gets two carrots: the chance to pick their playoff conference (you can go East or West), as well as the No. 10 pick in the upcoming draft (that's a supplemental pick; they'd get their own first-rounder as well)."

April should be the climax of the NBA's regular season, a time when the game's most outstanding players are showcasing their skills as an appetizer for the postseason. That's hard to do when stars are in suits.

A few questions about intentional fouls in the NBA:

Are they good for the game?
No.

Would the game be better if players were intentionally fouled more?
Of course not.

Would the game be better if players were intentionally fouled less?
Yes.

Do intentional fouls discourage players from trying to make plays?
Yes. Research has shown this.

Is it good for the NBA if players are discouraged from making plays?
Of course not.

Do intentional fouls encourage players to play their best?
Of course not.

So intentional fouls mean we aren’t seeing the best basketball?
Obviously.

Are intentional fouls used mostly by inferior players?
Naturally, yes.

Are they used by defenders who can’t stop scorers?
Yes.

Is it fair to just grab a guy who’s beaten you?
No. Everybody who plays the game knows this.

Do intentional fouls discourage fast breaks, dunks and highlight plays?
Yes.

Are intentional fouls fun to watch?
Not usually.

Do they add to the flow of the game?
No. Quite the opposite. They kill the flow of the game.

Do they stop the game at its most exciting?
Yes, just when fans are rising from their seats.

Do they bring the game to a screeching halt?
Yes. They are a signal to fans to sit down.

Are fans more excited when the action is alive or dead?
Alive.

When the game stops, is the action usually alive or dead?
Dead.

Does anyone enjoy watching players and refs wait for action to start?
Of course not.

Does anyone enjoy watching players line up for free throws?
What do you think?

Is it fun to watch a big guy clobber a little guy?
Not usually.

Is it fun to watch a player “wrap up” another player?
Not really.

Are those basketball plays?
Not really.

Did Naismith invent the game for players to grab other players?
No.

Did Bill Russell play the game by grabbing little guys?
No.

Did Wilt Chamberlain? Did he ever foul out of an NBA game?
No. No.

Do intentional fouls bring fans into the game?
No.

Are intentional fouls safe?
No.

Are they ugly?
Yes.

Do they contribute to the artistry and creativity of the game?
No.

Do they lead to more menace and mayhem on the court?
Yes.

Are they bad for the future of the sport?
Yes.

Do they make the NBA more like pro wrestling?
Yes.

Do they make the game harder to officiate correctly?
Yes.

Are players bigger, stronger and faster than ever?
Yes.

Are intentional fouls dangerous?
Yes.

Is that part of the appeal for fans?
Of course.

Do intentional fouls cause injuries?
Yes.

Do they cause concussions?
Yes.

Do they cause players to need painkillers?
Yes.

Could they cause players to take illegal supplements and performance-enhancing drugs for recovery?
Yes.

Does the league like them?
No, but it inadvertently encourages them.

Do players like them?
No, they hate them.

Do coaches like them?
No, they love them.

Are there NBA rules against intentional fouls?
Sort of.

Are intentional fouls punished sufficiently in the NBA?
Obviously not. That’s why they happen so often.

Are intentional fouls allowed in other leagues around the world?
No, they're not.

Is there another league that encourages players to break the rules?
Maybe. If so, that’s pretty dumb.

Do the rules on intentional fouls come from a dumber, outdated era?
Yes.

Are we in a smarter, more informed era now?
Yes.

Do the current NBA rules still encourage intentional fouls?
Yes.

Is it time for change?
Yes.

Dean Oliver (pioneer of NBA advanced stats, author of the seminal book "Basketball on Paper," former member of the Nuggets brain trust and current Director of Production Analytics for ESPN Stats & Information) once had a website where he wrote about basketball.

So much smart stuff there. Including, way back in 2001, a succinct little history about the "no layups" rule that's a big topic in the NBA today. Where did that style of defense come from? Oliver writes:

At the latter end of the 1980s, word went around the NBA that the way to beat the Lakers was to beat them up, to "play them physically." Laker Coach Pat Riley resented it at the time and, when his team got beat in the Finals by a Detroit Pistons team employing the strategy, Riley remembered. After a year watching the NBA from the broadcast booth (and losing pop-a-shot competitions to Bob Costas), Riley came back to coach the New York Knicks in the 1991-1992 season. He came back determined to get vengeance.

Riley’s first season with the Knicks inspired a 12-game improvement in the team. Even more eye-catching to other coaches was what happened in the playoffs. The Knicks got nowhere close to beating the Bulls in 1991 in their first round series, losing 3-0. In 1992, under Riley’s changes (to be discussed), the Knicks beat the Pistons in the first round playing better bad-boy-ball than the Bad Boys themselves. They followed it up with a physical 7-game series loss to the eventual champion Bulls, battering the heroic Michael Jordan in the process.

Riley improved the Knicks through defense. He taught them to rotate quickly and he taught them to allow nothing easy. Riley saw the league getting more physical and he decided to push it. He espoused the infamous phrase, "No layups allowed." Numerically, the Knicks’ improvement from ’91 to ’92 was 1 point offensive and 3 points defensive; the Knicks’ offensive rating (points per 100 possessions) went from 105.4 to 106.4 and its defensive rating went from 105.6 to 102.3. They did it by fouling an extra 2 times per game and sending opponents to the line an extra 3 times per game. Their opponents shooting percentage went from 47.6% to 45.8%. Their opponents started taking more 3s because they were getting beat up or double-teamed down low. Riley figured that he wouldn’t get beat with jump shots.

And the league learned.

Oliver then goes on to explain that scoring efficiency in general suffered. 2-point field goal percentage had been steady for a long time, but began to plummet. He continues:

This decline could be the lack of mid-range jump shooters that we’ve heard about, but it appears to be the "No layups" rule. Recall back in the 1980s when teams would often have a guy like a Mark West or a Steve Johnson or a Buck Williams who just knew how to finish off after an offensive rebound. Remember when Dennis Rodman used to shoot nearly 60% doing the same thing. Then teams learned that he didn’t shoot foul shots very well and sent him to the line. Then he turned into a complete freak, but we digress. In the ‘91-92 season, Rodman shot 54% from the field, taking only 140 shots from the foul line. In the next season, Rodman shot 23 more foul shots (at 53%) in 1000 fewer minutes and his field goal percentage plummeted to 43%. Rodman was an extreme (there’s an understatement), but the league’s leading field goal percentage shooters showed a similar pattern.

So where we used to have exciting putbacks, athletic finishes around the rim, we instead got boring free throws, a slower game, dangerous plays, and lower scoring.

I understand why the Knicks, or other teams, would employ such tactics -- they want to win! What I don't understand why the league -- who have the duty to look out for player health and fan interest -- would, decades later, still reward such a tactic.

Before the game, Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau predicted a "cage match."

Physicality, in other words, would be Chicago's solution to Miami's big, strong and super-quick LeBron James and Dwyane Wade, who tend to make layup after layup. Good, solid defense doesn't cut it against those two. The recipe? When they get a step on their defenders, when layups and dunks look likely ... tackle them, hit them, bring them down out of the sky.

It started a few minutes into the game, when an eager Kirk Hinrich, despite having perfect defensive position, crashed into an open-court James rather than attempt to strip the ball, draw the charge or contest at the rim. Minutes later, Hinrich was directly in James' path, in position to draw a charge or try to poke the ball away. His move? A bear hug that ended with his own head whacking the floor hard.

Moments later, James was zeroing in on a reverse layup or dunk, and the Bulls' Taj Gibson -- in no position to touch the ball -- swung hard and connected with his hand directly to James' head. Instead of dunking, James ended up on the floor, checking his teeth. And that was just the first quarter.

Why, again, is this fun to watch?

Although the Heat have sent the league video of hard fouls on James and Wade, with particular emphasis on hits to the head, players like James seldom admit such things affect them -- even as a growing body of data suggests the best players put off driving when they don't feel they have to.

Two weeks ago James denied hard fouls affected his thinking, saying after a win in Philadelphia: "I'm a football player. I'm good. I can't worry about what may happen. I live in the moment. I'm an attack guy. I'm an attack player. I don't really make my mark on the perimeter."

But after the loss to the Bulls, James was more frank, telling ESPN.com's Michael Wallace: "A lot of my fouls are not basketball plays. First of all, Kirk Hinrich in the first quarter basically grabbed me with two hands and brought me to the ground. The last one, Taj Gibson was able to collar me around my shoulder and bring me to the ground. Those are not defensive ... those are not basketball plays."

In an era when the NBA is watching closely to reduce concussions and head injuries, James was obviously hit hard in the head by Gibson twice, and also endured an open-court collaring that was initially ruled a flagrant. James' head also was struck once by a driving Nate Robinson, and for good measure, again as a parting gift from a Bulls fan as James made his way, after the loss, to the locker room. Wade also was sent sprawling to the floor spectacularly and regularly.

On ESPN, Bill Simmons called Wednesday night's Bulls win over the Heat the most important regular-season game since the 1990s. The winning strategy was from the 1990s, too. It's called Tackle Basketball.

It's not an accident. It's a strategy that works because of a loophole in the NBA's rules.

Stu Jackson is the NBA vice president of basketball operations, the man responsible for keeping those rules dialed in correctly. He's frank that he hates how the famously rough Knicks played back in the day, and touts rule changes as having made the game much more pleasing, and about artistry. Jackson says "that what keeps us up at night" in his department is the fear that the game would return to the artless way it was played in the 1990s.

I wonder how Jackson and crew slept Wednesday night.

This is not about babying James or anybody else. This is about the league encouraging the best possible version of the game, the one that works best for players and fans. Would you rather see James dunk or get hit in the head? Would you rather see Hinrich meet James in the air or in a bear hug?

This is ultimately about answering this question: What is basketball, and is tackling part of it?

The walls of my office are covered in hoops books. Some are of the “how to play” variety. I just took a stack of them -- by everyone from Walt Frazier to John Wooden -- over to a comfortable seat and spent an hour reading up on how the experts say good defense ought to be played.

They talk about footwork and brains. They talk about keeping your torso between your man and the basket, staying on the balls of your feet, knees bent, hands up and mind alert. They talk about staying on the ground for fakes and talking to teammates. They also talk about many layers of thought: tracking both the ball and your man, memorizing the tendencies of every player on the court, knowing who likes to go left, who telegraphs passes, who never passes, whom you should never leave open.

It’s the art and science of basketball, in a shape-shifting formula of movement, work ethic, preparation, smarts, muscle and know-how, all working toward the common goal: making sure you don’t get beat.

But in the NBA in 2013, even if you do get beat ... defenses have one move left, and it’s not described in books.

The move goes like this: That guy with the ball? Clobber him. The harder the better.

It happens in every game, every night.

We tell ourselves fouls are mistakes, a surplus of effort or grit from players going a bit too hard trying to play the kind of defense described in those books. And some fouls are like that.

Other times it’s a lot less nuanced. Other times it has nothing to do with basketball. Instead, it’s the opposite of sportsmanship.

Many of the players doing this are among the nicest in sports. They are neither imbalanced, deranged nor in need of help.

So why would generally even-keeled men endanger their colleagues by making what should be the game’s prettiest plays -- flashy finishes at the rim -- into the ugly kind of basketball that is proven to turn off casual fans?

They’re doing it because it works. The fact of the matter is that, because of a flaw in the NBA rulebook that’s only truly becoming clear, it’s almost always better for NBA teams to foul really hard than give up a layup or dunk. The cost of the hard foul is a pittance compared to the benefits. They don't just stop fantastic baskets, they also make potent scorers think twice about driving at all. Everyone on the court knows a couple of free throws is a bargain for all that.

That’s why these days very hard foulers are getting high-fives from teammates and pats on the backs from coaches; they are helping their team win on a technicality.

And it’s going to keep happening until the league does something about it.

For a while, the Memphis Grizzlies were the Western Conference’s most intriguing story. During the height of the season, they dealt their most prolific scorer (Rudy Gay) for a less selfish one (Tayshaun Prince). Following the trade, the Grizzlies cratered for a period, as a malaise infected a somber locker room. But once they incorporated Prince into their defensive schemes and worked out their rotations, the Grizzlies rallied with a fury to win 14 of 15 games.

While Memphis was experiencing its Glasnost, the Denver Nuggets cruised through their schedule like a snowmobile through powder. They ran up 15 straight wins with the NBA’s most improvisational and electric offense, paying tribute to Doug Moe’s “organized chaos” of the early-model Nuggets.

For weeks it appeared the Los Angeles Clippers were a lock to finish in the No. 3 slot, but with Memphis and Denver ripping off wins in bunches, the West’s third seed was put back into play -- and the best race for playoff positioning was under way.

Then, just as the drive for the postseason was becoming scenic, the Grizzlies lost Marc Gasol to an abdominal tear and Denver's Ty Lawson was sidelined with a heel injury. As Gasol watched in street clothes, the Grizzlies fell back to earth. The Grizzlies barely held off at home a Celtics team that hadn’t won a road game since March 6 and dropped a game in ugly fashion at Washington. With Lawson out, Denver stole a game at home against a decimated Sixers squad, squeaked by Sacramento (also in Denver) and was blown out in New Orleans.

In an instant, the screen went dark in the Western Conference just as things were getting good. The Grizzlies and Nuggets are still playing games, but at the moment when each team was hitting its stride and making a compelling case that it could play with anyone, the best talent left the scene.

Injuries are an inconvenient reality in pro basketball, and every night coaches and players stand before the media and insist that a depleted roster is no excuse for a drop-off in performance. “Nobody is 100 percent this time of year” is practically a spring sonnet in the NBA.

Consider the implications of this: At the most dramatic juncture of the season when elite players should be putting their imprints on the playoff race, they’re competing at less than full strength -- if they’re competing at all. In addition to Gasol and Lawson, Dwyane Wade and David West are missing games; Carmelo Anthony and Tony Parker have missed significant time as well.

It’s tough to draw a direct correlation between the length and workload of an NBA season and player health. Abdominal tears can occur during Game 10, and a player can suffer a heel injury during a summer workout. But when you talk to NBA players and coaches about player health, when you see more and more guys shuffling in and out of the treatment room after practices and games as the season grinds on, it’s clear that an 82-game season isn’t helping. Humans are far more likely to suffer injuries when they’re exhausted, and there’s legitimate evidence that excessive minutes hurt performance while rest improves the well-being of an athlete.

The result is that fans are also deprived of barn-burner basketball. Did you see the Memphis’ new killer lineup and its plus-13.4 point differential per 100 possessions? Or the skid marks left by the Nuggets on a nightly basis at Pepsi Center? There was hardly a trace of all that Monday night in Washington and New Orleans, respectively.

“Nobody is 100 percent this time of year” is a silly way to run a business that’s driven by star power during the latter stages of the season. In what other sector are the highest performing employees absent during the busy time of year when the success and failure of the enterprise is on the line?

Stephen Curry was leading the Warriors on a 3-on-1 fastbreak as the Wizards scrambled to get back. Advantage: Golden State.

Until Cartier Martin, trailing the play, made what has become a fairly routine, if constantly dangerous, NBA play. Rather than concede the offense the advantage, he grabbed Curry around the waist.

Curry is crafty, however, and initially eluded Martin with a nifty behind the back dribble. Except Martin wasn't just reaching for the ball. He wasn't really playing basketball at all. His intent was to stop the play. Instead of a touch foul, he held on to Curry who -- in a scene all too familiar to Golden State fans -- rolled over his surgically repaired right ankle (VIDEO).

Curry stuck around to hit his free throws, then went to the locker room to be examined by medical personnel. He would not return to the game.

With all those huge players moving at high speed, injuries like rolled ankles are bound to happen. But the Curry-Martin incident was in a different category of blatantly intentional fouls that never would have happened if the rules didn't encourage players like Martin to prevent likely scores with drastic fouls.

The mission of HoopIdea's Working Bodies campaign is to maximize player safety. Although a number of dangerous plays and injuries are very tough to prevent, intentional fouls are different. There's no mystery about why they occur. They are the result of conscious decision-making, not random chance. On TrueHoop in the days to come, we'll explore this overlooked but important (ask a Warriors fan!) part of the game, and what can be done about it.

 

The NBA began the season with a new rule against flopping, and the early indications were it made a difference.

Since 2013 began, however, the NBA has cited a mere four flops, out of close to 25,000 minutes of live ball play. Here they are, with video:

• Corey Brewer (March 9)
• C.J. Watson (Januar 25)
• Kevin Martin (January 23)
• J.J. Barea (January 22)

Considering that the league issued a total of 12 warnings and fines in the first two months of the season, that could be a sign the rule is doing its job, and players are flopping less.

But on the other hand, it's not that hard to find examples of flops that are going unpunished. A sampling:

• Chris Paul (March 19)
• Kyle Lowry (January 16)
• Blake Griffin (January 19)
• Chris Bosh (January 30)
• Gordon Hayward (March 13)
• Lance Stephenson (March 15)

Subjective observations suggests that the league, as a whole, on the season, has less flopping. But there's also evidence that the NBA is becoming increasingly lax in its policing.

The playoffs, when flopping rates are usually at their season-high, are just around the corner. Teams value every possession more in the playoffs, and therefore the incentive to flop will be high. And the league's flopping policy has always had the flaw that fines and sanctions are only handed down after the game, so a key flop still might win some team or another a playoff game.

Now seems like the right time to make clear the best game plans should not involve flops.

Also, the way the league has punished flopping has not helped to combat the perception that superstars are largely immune. The biggest name on the list of floppers this season is Tony Parker. Meanwhile the player with one of the greatest flopping reputations, Paul, has gotten off entirely, despite video evidence that he hasn't changed his style much. The league has an excellent opportunity right now to prove stars like Paul can get in flop trouble, too.

The Heat's winning streak -- 23 and counting, second longest in NBA history -- has touched off a parlor game for NBA fans and Vegas bettors.

Which team will finally beat them?

The schedule would seem to be a logical place to seek answers, and the Bulls and Spurs stand out as tough upcoming opposition.

But the first good team pops up a whole week from now. The Heat just beat a staunch opponent in the Celtics. For now, it's all cupcakes:

• Wednesday: At the Kyrie-less Cavaliers.
• Friday: Hosting the muddled Pistons.
• Sunday: Home against the 15-52 Bobcats, a year removed and little improved from being the worst team in NBA history.
• Monday: On the road against the not-much-better Magic, who famously got little in return for Dwight Howard in the name of rebuilding through the draft.

I'm here to tell you that every single one of those teams is as likely as the Bulls or Spurs to end the Heat's streak. It matters way less than you think who the Heat play. That's not because the Heat are so good it doesn't matter who they play. (The Spurs are a handful!) That's because the Heat's next loss will likely be in deference to the team of exhaustion and injury concerns, a combination that threatens to cost every NBA team a game at almost any time.

All through this streak, the Heat have been mailing in portions of games, letting inferior opponents hang around. It's a dangerous game, as far as the streak is concerned, that could go wrong at any time.

It has almost cost them games already. Even during the streak, the Heat have almost lost to the Bobcats, Cavaliers and Magic, winning by five, four and one, respectively. The mighty Sacramento Kings took the Heat to double overtime. The broken-spirited 76ers had a lead in the closing minutes.

Those teams couldn't touch Miami when it's playing at its best, but the Heat can't afford to do that very often.

This is no criticism of the Heat. Rather it's a criticism of the NBA, whose schedule has never allowed coaches and players to do their best work night in and night out. It's physiologically impossible for the best players to perform their best all season long. We'd like this game to be about bringing your A-game every night. But that's really not how it is done. Never has been. Steve Nash's Phoenix years are a case study in this. He went hard every single night, and despite amazing training and diet, was gassed by the playoffs. The schedule simply won't allow full effort all season.

They used to say you can't "turn it on." This was offered as a reason for teams not to play it cool throughout the season, expecting to rise above in the playoffs. But they don't say that anymore, because in recent years teams have been doing just that, most notably Kevin Garnett's Celtics and also Kobe Bryant's Lakers. Research suggests teams that have recently won titles have a long history of taking it a bit easier in the regular season, then playing much better when it matters in the playoffs.

The truth appears to be that you simply must ration effort one way or another. The best coach in the NBA, Gregg Popovich, knows this and brilliantly leads the league in keeping his players off the floor, even while they're healthy. Sometimes for entire games. That's a big part of why the Spurs have long had the best records in the NBA.

Heat coach Erik Spoelstra has pecked at the edge of Popovich's approach -- nowadays he sits James for a few minutes to start most fourth quarters, in the name of a fresher player. (The Heat organization is convinced that the story of LeBron James' poor performance in the 2011 Finals against the Mavericks was one of exhaustion from a player who had played insane minutes all season.)

James and Dwyane Wade honor fatigue and injury risk less by sitting for long stretches, and more by taking it easy on the court. Watch Wade as he fluctuates between vigorous and serene. Watch how James metes out his forays to the rim, which are taxing both in the explosive movements and the dangerous fouls. When the team has a lead, James and Wade tend to spare themselves that punishment -- as, research shows, NBA stars tend to do. When the team trails and needs a bucket, however, they attack viciously.

It's not such a dangerous game from the point of view of a playoff series, in which a team can afford to lose a game or two. But for keeping a streak alive, when no losses can be tolerated, it's a ticking clock. Against weak opponents, the Heat offense is at its very best for only a few possessions per game.

Even in a streak like this, it's important to think about the long term. You can't win a marathon at Mile 16.

Very sophisticated research in elite soccer has shown that just two competitions a week, as opposed to the traditional one per weekend, ramps up the injury risk significantly. It removes entirely the ability for a player to do a real conditioning workout and recover in time for the next contest. Getting the same exercise in games comes with vastly higher injury risks. Conditioning and rest have real benefits that professional basketball players know too little.

The cost is that we seldom get to see the best NBA players -- who play far more than twice a week -- performing at their very best.

I have asked several players recently at what time of year they're at their physical best. So far, to a man, they answer: training camp.

(How messed up is that, from the league's point of view? They're at their physical best, and nobody is even watching.)

From there, no matter how tough your spirit or inspired your workout plan, it's an athletically degrading league-mandated saga of long travel, short sleep, minimal conditioning and a growing collection of injuries, bangs and bruises. One injury expert told me he thought almost every NBA injury was an overuse injury.

"When you get down to those late months and the playoffs, you know that guys aren't at their peak physically," says the Heat's James Jones. "They're gutting it out. You're seeing performances in spite of injuries, in spite of fatigue, in spite of nicks and bruises. And that's where the greatness is revealed."

Where it's not revealed, at least not intelligently, is in a Monday night in March, on the road against the lottery-bound Magic.

The Heat could lose at any time, because any team can lose at any time. Because in this league, it's about fatigue and injury risk as much as it is about the other team. To win that contest, you've got to ration your A-game.

As a former nemesis of Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash, and many others, Bruce Bowen was long one of the NBA’s nastiest defenders. Years after retirement, his most dangerous plays still draw traffic on YouTube.

And even Bowen thought Dahntay Jones crossed a line, endangering Bryant, on the decisive play of the Lakers’ key road loss to the Hawks on Wednesday night.

"Replay shows he kind of walked up under him a little bit there," said Bowen on ESPN. "You're wondering why is he continuing to walk toward Kobe at that particular moment."

Bryant (who has been upset by Jones fouls in the past) was livid postgame, telling reporters and his Twitter followers that the league needs to do more to protect shooters.

"As defensive players, you can contest shots, but you can't walk underneath players," Bryant said. "That's dangerous for the shooter."

#dangerousplay that should have been called. Period.

— Kobe Bryant (@kobebryant) March 14, 2013

Jones was on Twitter later, saying he'd never try to hurt Bryant, and suggesting Bryant's ankle was injured hitting the floor -- not by landing on Jones' foot -- and that Bryant might have been called for an offensive foul for kicking out his leg.

Jones, by rule, must give the airborne man room to land. He did not. And why are the rules so clear on that point? Because if defenders are allowed to move under shooters, that's a way to alter a scorer's shot and mental approach to the shot without actually playing defense. At a minimum, that's a foul. Period.

Furthermore, this is a brand of dirty play with a history of causing injury – not only did Bowen face accusations during his career, but Jalen Rose recently admitted intentionally injuring Bryant with this trick in the 2000 NBA Finals, and talked about it again on ESPN last night. Rose pointed out he was just doing whatever it took to win.

The NBA must consider stronger medicine, to rearrange how players like Jones think about safety.

Bryant is out indefinitely with an ankle sprain, while the Lakers are fighting for their playoff lives.

"Kobe has every right to feel the way he does," concludes Bowen. "This is his career."

The real problem: This play was not a one-off. It’s part of every NBA game.

It’s a form of cheating so diabolical and so wrapped up in the culture of the sport that it’s hard to even see it. The ref missed it, and it took replays to reveal why Bryant was writhing on the floor in pain after the play.

So why would NBA coaches be OK with this behavior?

NBA coaches know that the game's most talented players, the superstars, the take-you-off-the-dribble scorers, can be unstoppable when guarded cleanly. It's not hard for a player like LeBron James to beat his man on the perimeter.

What to do about that? Many NBA coaches have found ways to make sure those scorers see multiple defenders on their path, and that helps. But in addition, defenders know what most coaches expect -- no layups, no buckets. As every fan knows, this is the no-layup rule.

When Jones got under Bryant, he was merely applying a variation of the same rule.

Is it cheating? Yes and no.

The problem is, NBA rules provide such weak penalties that this is essentially like the speed limit on the highway -- something most drivers ignore.

But it is cheating according to the spirit of the rules. Bryant was playing basketball, while Jones was trying to stop basketball from being played.

Yet it’s what the NBA rules essentially encourage -- every night, teams foul intentionally and often, and it works.

When a superstar beats his man off the dribble, look out.

For a recent Working Bodies project on concussions, we reviewed thousands of plays where players got hurt, or could have been badly injured. A big, stark trend emerges: A ton of those fouls are intentional.

When superstars get close to scoring, their likelihood of getting intentionally fouled -- by strategy -- goes off the charts. The video evidence is plentiful.

About the same time Bryant was getting hurt in Atlanta, in the visiting locker room in Philadelphia, LeBron and Dwyane Wade acknowledged they expect to get beat up as they approach the rim. On a first-half dunk, Sixers center Spencer Hawes, never regarded as one of the league's big enforcers, hit James so hard in the head that James’ head was still rattling from side to side.

Wade says Hawes got him too: “One of the first plays of the game, Spencer Hawes hit me. I thought I lost my teeth. Once my mouth went from being numb, I was good to go.”

Neither play merited special comment in any of the game coverage, and for one big reason: This is every night for the league’s best scorers. Endangering superstars with dirty play is on almost every team’s agenda, whether they’ll ever talk about it publicly or not.

Now a transcendent star, Kobe Bryant, in the middle of an amazing, late-season charge by one of the NBA’s marquee teams, the Lakers, is out indefinitely, with a playoff berth at stake, because the rules protect a role player with a rep for questionable plays -- and yet Jones didn’t even have a foul called against him.

Who’s next? James Harden sure beats his man off the dribble a lot. How will his playoff opponents handle that? The no-layup rule? That’s a license to kill, figuratively speaking. Derrick Rose knows that upon his return he'll be facing far more than shot-blockers when he gets into the paint.

Kobe, D-Rose, Kevin Durant, D-Wade, Russell Westbrook, Tony Parker, Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, Ty Lawson, Stephen Curry, LeBron and many more of our greatest players -- these are the players the fans want to see.

Yet they are not only the NBA’s most precious commodities, the stars who drive the ratings and traffic and revenues and fun, but also the players who are most commonly facing dirty opponents with the potential to end their seasons.

Everyone understands that basketball is tough and physical -- a contact sport. Everyone accepts that. That’s not the problem Kobe is addressing.

Bryant did a rare thing in declaring he, as a scorer, could use more protection from the league. Asked about the league doing more, Wade said, "I love contact." James said he has a "football mentality," and will never let injury concerns deter him from attacking. In other words, the stars usually read from the script, never letting anyone know that they are afraid of anything.

Meanwhile, despite such pronouncements, there's evidence Bryant speaks for other stars as well. Recent research from Microsoft's Justin Rao and U.C. San Diego's Matt Goldman suggests that with their teams trailing late in games, stars drive hard to the hole. With a small lead, however, and the game still just as much in the balance, their offense is far more timid. The undeniable conclusion: Drive only when absolutely necessary.

The pressing problem the NBA needs to fix is that intentional, brutal fouls are good strategy.

There are many benefits to fouling hard: missed shots, hobbled opponents and superstars who have to stay on the perimeter because they know the rules won’t protect them.

Sure, some fouls draw free throws -- and some don’t, as Kobe found out last night.

And so what? As coaches have long known, those free throws are not as valuable to a team as a superstar getting to the rim -- we can determine this from the optical tracking data provided by SportVu.

So the guys doing the fouling aren’t renegades, maniacs and jerks. They're not "out of control." This is not about Metta World Peace losing his cool. It’s not about players being overeager. These are not accidental injuries.

It’s about doing what the coaches want defensive players to do -- clobber the other team to gain an advantage.

It’s just good strategy -- a good way to win games. Dahntay Jones knew what he was doing.

Lost in the conversation of last night is that Jones’ dirty play was a game winner. This stuff works.

In an interview taped Tuesday with coach Mike Krzyzewski, to be aired Wednesday evening on Sirius XM's “Basketball and Beyond with Coach K”, NBA Commissioner David Stern addresses the turmoil at the National Basketball Players Association. The union's longtime executive director, Billy Hunter, has been facing various investigations into misconduct and was fired last month. He has been replaced, on an interim basis, by longtime NBPA lawyer Ron Klempner.

Stern had an interesting take, focused on how the union might better serve players, telling Krzyzewski:

It’s fair to say that while this matter has been percolating in the union they haven’t been as proactive as they could be on a variety of what we used to call "b-list" issues, for player development, even discussions further with the NCAA about when players should be eligible. A wide variety of things.

We’re looking for a partner that can really make life better for our players, would-be players, sort of the social welfare task of a union, together with growing the game so that everyone prospers.

And then at some future date we’ll argue about how to split up the sum of all of the growth we’ve worked on together. So we see it as a significant opportunity once it gets itself settled down.

TrueHoop's Working Bodies series -- digging into issues of, essentially, player job safety -- is focused on many of those "social welfare" issues.

Issues like player exhaustion due to the 82-game schedule, concussion research, limiting players' exposure to dangerous doping products or high-technology approaches to injury reduction are hot topics in basketball circles, but the union has not been central to those conversations. But they certainly could be, and probably should be, as the beneficiaries of such thinking would certainly be players.