NBA officiating has been the playoffs’ sideshow. We asked fans what most needs fixing.

Of course the NBA’s officiating has become one of this postseason’s side characters. Do the Oklahoma City Thunder still get away with too much physical contact other teams aren’t allowed? Is the league protecting Victor Wembanyama? Which stars have the best whistle, and why? These are constant debates, ones that have revved up again after Wembanyama’s shove on Jalen Brunson wasn’t called in Game 3 nor penalized after the fact, the latest error following the San Antonio Spurs’ Game 3 win that cut the New York Knicks’ lead in the 2026 NBA Finals in half.

All that said, when examining our recent NBA fan survey, only 13 percent of you all described it as irredeemably bad. When asked, How would you describe the current overall state of NBA officiating?, the plurality of the respondents chose the most middling option, three, on this question’s one-to-five scale.

Fouls have increased this postseason from the regular season that came before it, rising from 19.9 to 22.0, which ironically might only indicate how much more contact, in many cases, has been allowed. As we examined earlier in the playoffs, it was the amount of off-ball contact allowed that became basketball’s most notable trend, one which an assistant coach told me, “I feel like you can get away with anything off the ball. It doesn’t make sense to guard any other way.” Whether it’s Nikola Jokić and Victor Wembanyama being denied post positioning, or Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Brunson being clamped in a technically-illegal-but-uncalled way away from the ball, the physicality of the defenders has been a defining story.

According to our survey’s respondents, a data set I’ve speculated did trend more towards hardcore and online fans, that’s what you want. When asked, If you were commissioner, which three of these common complaints about officiating would you most urgently look to address?, the third-most selected option was fans wishing for more physicality. The first two, of course, centered around the concept of cheap fouls being whistled despite not being earned. Clearly, it seems, the popular sentiment is that missed calls are bad but soft whistles are worse.

In my view, a league-wide reemphasis on illegal screens would be the quickest path to reducing scoring across the NBA. You could argue inconsistent calls apply to that rule, too, since not every player would survive setting screens like Wembanyama does here. (To be fair to the NBA officials, it seems rather consistent that the illegal screens they whistle are ones where the player isn’t set; most of the rest of the physical contact is allowed.)

But fans don’t want scoring to decline. When asked, Which of these common complaints about the NBA meaningfully affect your own enjoyment of the league?, among the nine issues I subjectively chose for the question’s options, the least selected answer was “style of play / too many 3s”. In other words, fans aren’t outraged by the number of points being scored or the evolving strategies behind earning them. What fans care about is the injustice that some players earn points from plays that don’t feel moral or like proper basketball, and they care that some players are rewarded for contact when others are denied whistles in a similar situation.

I’ve always felt this popular maxim is most true: The whistle should most emulate what the calls you’d earn in a game of pickup hoops. That if the offensive player creates contact with a defender, that’s his choice, one he should often live with no matter how it affects his ensuing shot. That the postseason should be a war for every possession, not just for players who don’t have the ball in their hands.

Will we get that? While the NBA certainly can multitask, it has most recently had other priorities, namely its tanking reform. No wonder, in our survey, that more fans disagreed with their assessment than fell in line with them (although the responses were polarized, to be sure). But while this postseason has created brilliant drama and tension, it’s unwarranted free throws that have most often taken us out of our trance. These superstars are already too good; they don’t need any more help.

Tim Cato is ALLCITY’s national NBA writer currently based in Dallas. He can be reached at tcato@alldlls.com or on X at @tim_cato.

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