On the Italian night between Sunday and Monday the NBA match (the North American basketball championship) between the Chicago Bulls and the Atlanta Hawks ended 152 to 150, for a total of 302 points scored. It is a result (intended precisely as the sum of two numbers) out of the ordinary for basketball, but it is a little less so for that particular type of basketball that is NBA basketball. Compared to other leagues, especially the European ones, in the NBA – at least in the less decisive games, those of the regular season – it is easier score a lotso much so that there have already been several games over 300 points. The one between Bulls and Hawks wasn’t even among the most prolific in the history of the championship.
On the contrary, in the Euroleague – the main European championship, considered the most prestigious and competitive after the NBA – not even 260 points have ever been exceeded. To clarify, on December 19th the match between Barcelona and Baskonia (which ended after three extra times and therefore lasted longer than usual) has become the one with the most points scored in the history of the competition. But there were only 258. In the NBA, each team averages that well over 100 points per game; in the Euroleague it is rare for a team to average points per game above 90.
It seems strange, but in the NBA, the most difficult league in the world, it is in many ways easier to score a lot of points. Slovenian Luka Doncic – currently one of the best players in the NBA, where he arrived in 2018 after winning the Euroleague with Real Madrid – he reiterated several times this thing, focusing on the significant regulatory differences that exist between the NBA and the rest of the world. Although the NBA and the Euroleague are both private leagues (i.e. with their own regulations), the latter roughly follows the rules of FIBA, the international basketball organization. Which are also those adopted by the main national and international championships.
The NBA does it its way instead. First of all, in the NBA there is more time to score and regain energy. While a match that follows FIBA rules lasts 40 actual minutes and each team can call a maximum of five timeout of 60 seconds each, in the NBA a game lasts 48 minutes and timeout there are seven for each team and they last 75 seconds.
In the NBA, then, there is an extra rule that helps those who are attacking a lot. There the players they can’t stay in your “painting” (the part immediately under your basket, sometimes literally painted with a different color) for more than three seconds while the opposing team has the ball in their hands. It is a rule that does not exist in the rest of the world and limits what a tall and powerful basketball player can do on defense, because, in fact, he cannot remain under the basket indefinitely unless he is actively defending on an opponent. Since 2001, when this rule was introduced in the NBA, the average number of points scored in games is often increased.
Even before this change, however, scoring a lot in the NBA was relatively easy, thanks to other rules which limited the effectiveness of the defense. In fact the match with the most points in the history of the championship it was played in 1983 between the Detroit Pistons and the Denver Nuggets. He finished 186-184, for a total of 370 points.
Those who regulate the NBA, after all, have always wanted to encourage more spectacular and prolific basketball, to the detriment of the regulations themselves. For example, players often take more than the two steps allowed with the ball without dribbling and in the majority of cases, even the most sensational ones, the referees do not blow the whistle.
– Read also: Not even five steps with the ball in hand were enough to nullify an Antetokounmpo basket in the NBA
In the Euroleague, fewer goals are scored also because the style of play is different from that of the NBA, being much more tactical and team-based. In the NBA, however, teams rely more on individual plays, favoring attack over defense. In short, there is more space – literally more space, given that the pitch is bigger – for the players, who are also among the best in the world. So strong that Doncic – who is certainly part of this category – even defines them as “impossible to defend”. In short, in the NBA games of over 300 points happen because the best in the world play them, but also because those players find themselves in a context that often puts them in a position to score many points, which perhaps they wouldn’t be able to score in the Euroleague.
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