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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.

ESPN.com's Kevin Arnovitz has been out of the closet, and going to work at NBA stadiums (and yes, in locker rooms) for years.

In his experience, how can Jason Collins, now that he's out, really expect to be treated?

Phoenix guard Kendall Marshall might have the NBA's best Twitter game, as we discussed with him on TrueHoop TV last week. In the second of two episodes we get the back story behind @KButter5 tweets like "So apparently yelling 'GET A BUCKET' is frowned upon at an 8th grade girls lacrosse game. My bad."

In response to several Twitter requests, here's Outside the Lines on Jason Collins, featuring TrueHoop's Kevin Arnovitz:

In his book "Relentless," legendary NBA trainer Tim Grover talks about what motivates his superstar clients Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant and Dwyane Wade. Then he talks about different character types, the highest of which, in his judgment, is what he calls a "cleaner." Jordan, Bryant and Wade are, Grover says, all cleaners.

What about LeBron James, whom Grover does not train? Grover met James when the then high-schooler hanging around Grover's Chicago gym during Michael Jordan's comeback pickup games.

James is not a cleaner, says Grover -- who also primarily credits Wade with the Heat's 2012 title. James has a chance to become a cleaner, however, says Grover, right now in these playoffs.

A who's who of NBA players are on the shelf. A team made of Russell Westbrook, Derrick Rose, Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash, Rajon Rondo, Danny Granger, David Lee, Danilo Gallinari, Amare Stoudemire, and Lou Williams would contend. Instead all those players and more are out for all or most of the playoffs.

Asking what caused all those injuries takes you on a bit of wild goose chase. There have always been injuries in all sports; I doubt we'll ever know if these are connected in some way or just a random and unlucky collection of events.

But there is a better question with more of an answer: Are there things we can do to reduce the likelihood of injuries in the future? That's what Working Bodies is all about. And that's where the research is not crystal clear, but has been getting incredibly busy.

Violent moments

Russell Westbrook was injured on a play where Patrick Beverley went all out to help his team win -- even if it was both a long shot to work, and obviously creating one of the highest risk moments of Westbrook's night.

In the aftermath many have talked about Beverley's intent -- as if it's a important to know if he wanted to injure Westbrook or not. I say let's skip that debate. We'll never know his intent, and who cares anyway. Let's talk risk. Risk we know. All by himself Beverley created a moment that in retrospect is costing Westbrook, the Thunder and NBA fans a bunch of performances that were dear to all of them.

If I roll a bowling ball down the corridor of my office building, I may well hurt somebody. I might do it only with the most fun of intentions. But if you manage the building ... who cares? What matters is I don't do it again. What matters is I value my co-workers safety a little more.

The NBA would like Beverley to place a little higher value on Westbrook's safety. Forget what's dirty or not, or unknowable things like who's thinking evil thoughts. What's likely to cause injuries? Let's reduce that. Let's get players thinking, just a little more, about making sure they don't end each other's seasons. That's where plays like Beverley's, as well as blows to the head, and any plays that risk players hitting their heads on the court -- all things we now know are more dangerous than we ever thought -- ought to be the kinds of things the rules and the referees aggressively discourage.

Players going all-out to help their teams win will always have their supporters. It's a macho world. You won't get NBA legends lining up to support the NBA on this kind of change. That's fine. But if you're in David Stern's office, it's a problem that a player could make a dangerous decision like that, reckless enough to possibly end the season of the most resilient player in NBA history, and not even be called for a common foul, let alone a flagrant or an ejection.

These violent high-risk moments could be much more scarce. Many are intentional, which means they're not inevitable or part of the game, and would be easy to stop if people wanted to. Much of the time playing with little care about injuring others helps your team. If you ran the league, wouldn't you have to fix that?

A marathon

There's another lingering question for the league to consider: Are player spending too much time exhausted, and does that put them at excessive risk to get injured?

A little detour into running: If you train to run 400 meters -- that's one lap of the track -- training will include some 100-meter sprints and some mile-or-longer runs. Training works like that, more or less. You attack from all angles. Train for a five kilometer (3.1 mile) race and you can bet you'll do some sprints, as well as some runs are much longer than 3.1 miles.

But then there's the marathon. It's 26.2 miles. And if you train for a marathon, almost no matter what training regimen you use, you'll never be asked to run more than 20 miles.

 

Pretty weird, huh? You want to do five miles fast as you can, you'll sometimes run ten. You want to do ten miles fast as you can, and training involves regular runs of 12 or 15.

Race 26.2, though, and even at elite levels, chances are race day will take you further than any other day of the year. Almost all the experts agree on this.

And the reasoning is simple: Get a lot of people running 25 miles, and you'll get a lot of people injured. It just happens that way. There's some kind of real limit around 20 miles. Push past that, and maybe some outliers can handle it, but for the broad population it's just courting trouble.

Marathoners have known about this for decades and have long been skipping the monster training runs.

Meanwhile, it's looking like the 82-game NBA regular season might work like one monster training run.

Exhaustion does weird stuff

From a 2010 Brad Stenger article published by the Medill School of Journalism:

Gregory Dupont from the University of Lille's Laboratory of Human Movement Studies in France monitored injuries during the 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 UEFA Champions League seasons. He found the injury rate was six times higher when players played two matches per week versus one match per week. He published the study in the American Journal of Sports Medicine last April.

During the regular season NBA teams play 2-4 games per week and travel longer distances than a typical European soccer team.

Researchers have been putting little heart rate and motion sensors on soccer players in Europe. What they've been finding is something not unlike what marathon training regimens have long known: Get somebody exhausted, and their likelihood of injury skyrockets, even for the kinds of injuries you might think have nothing to do with fatigue.

When you're fresh, your soft tissue has a certain elasticity. Your muscles and tendons can cope with a normal amount of upset, like say, another player bashing into you while you're trying to call a timeout. Also, your own ability to be balanced and coordinated -- now we're talking nervous system stuff -- is good when you're in your comfort zone. On top of all that, when you're training a comfortable amount, it's a cinch to maintain good form.

Get yourself good and worn out, though, and a lot of those systems that keep you safe go away. I started training for marathons a few years ago, and the first time I ran 18 miles, I felt great most of the time, but with about two miles left things changed. I started to feel mighty brittle, like if somebody were to push me ever-so-gently from the side I would simply topple over. Not to mention I was bleary-eyed, imbalanced, with ragged form, and making poor decisions. Where you used to have these living, breathing, expanding, contracting things called muscles it feels like you now have old rope.

It's more than a little scary, in that state, to encounter the tiniest obstacles. A bumpy sidewalk, a twig in the street, a car that doesn't give you much room ... any and all can put you in peril. You have little ability to adjust to life's little challenges.

Research suggests you're an off-the-charts injury risk at that moment. And it feels like it.

In soccer they've been finding that same stuff. Exhausted players evidently lack normal range of motion, balance and coordination. An impact, fall or collision that might not injure a rested person might injure someone who has been going hard every day for months. In soccer, experts working with this theory have, amazingly, predicted injuries before they happen. Basically, they can look at who's running ragged out there, who's deep in the red zone of exhaustion. And then they have often been correct -- even though the injury ends up coming on a fluky-seeming play.

Word is spreading

Increasingly, NBA teams are tuning into the perils of exhaustion. One of those soccer experts who brags about predicting injuries is Italian Jean-Pierre Meerseman, who spoke at the Global Sports Management Summit in May in San Francisco. Many NBA bigwigs were in the audience, and they report he blew their minds with tales of knowing who'd be injured before the injury happened.

One NBA front office guy who tracks the work of Meerseman and others says he's increasingly coming to the view that the best approach for stars is to spend as much time as possible with their feet up. He's thinking the winning approach, given the rigorous schedule, might be to forego everything else, as in every practice all season, as well as every minute of play that wasn't essential.

A company called Apollo MIS, which recently merged with STATS, does some of that European-soccer style exhaustion tracking, and has some NBA clients. One of their most enthusiastic is the Spurs ... the very team which leads the league every year in intentionally sitting stars. A game when the schedule has been harsh on them? Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker sit. Ditto for any fourth quarter when the game isn't close. Even as some claim they've found the fountain of youth for Duncan and the like, they've even gotten in trouble with the league for it.

But the way the data is shaping up, it seems likely the league is going to face some tough choices: Change the schedule in a profound way to allow for meaningful rest and real in-season training. Or stare down the barrel of a growing body of evidence suggesting one of the things causing NBA injuries are decisions made by the NBA.

A franchise long defined by Dr. Jerry Buss, Phil Jackson and Kobe Bryant is coping with a dizzying array of injuries and changes. We examine with J.A. Adande:

 

At what age do you tell a highway it was adopted?

— Kendall Marshall (@KButter5) February 25, 2013

Suns guard Kendall Marshall has a fine Twitter game. On TrueHoop TV, he joins us as we celebrate the best of his social media work. The first of two episodes. The second is here.