OK, time for me to be a troublemaker. Or at least mildly rebellious.
My claim today: We don’t need to waste our time having debates about the foul-up-three-points strategy, because it’s mostly dead. Instead, I’m wondering about an entirely different late-game fouling debate that seems to have untapped potential.
To review, San Antonio’s 111-109 win over Oklahoma City in the NBA Cup semifinals generated much public hand-wringing over the ending, when the Spurs intentionally fouled three times in the final 10 seconds while protecting a three-point lead and ended up prevailing. Between this, the timeouts and the replay reviews, this may have been the longest 10 seconds in the history of basketball, sucking much of the drama out of an amazing fourth quarter. I can’t argue with the notion that this is a crappy way to end basketball games if it becomes orthodoxy throughout the league.
But as I pointed out in the playoffs, there is considerable debate whether foul-up-three is even a good strategy, especially with more than five seconds left (most teams are loath to foul with only a couple seconds left, when an instant catch-and-shoot is more likely to produce a three-shot foul), and especially when the trailing team still has a timeout left. Several teams have opted to play out that situation rather than foul when up three, including some that you would regard as more forward-thinking and analytics savvy.
In fact, it seems our minds fail to track all the times teams don’t foul up three. If we did, it would make the debate about “doing something” about the foul-up-three strategy seem quaint, like arguing about the best way to store CD-ROMs.
For instance, going through the game logs from the past two weeks, it appears there were eight other situations where a team had a three-point lead with between four and 24 seconds left on the game clock, and teams chose the foul-up-three strategy in none of them.
On Friday, Golden State opted not to foul with a three-point lead against Phoenix and 5.4 seconds left, even after the Suns’ Collin Gillespie put the ball on the floor:
Gillespie eventually threw a pass through Royce O’Neale’s septum and into the backcourt, where the Suns committed an uncalled backcourt violation and threw up a wild heave at the buzzer that came nowhere close.
That’s been a familiar story for teams that elected to defend: They either generated a turnover (such as Minnesota’s Anthony Edwards dispossessing the Thunder’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander) or a wild heave from the opponent.
It helps that defenses know what’s coming in that situation.
“Your defense has to make some type of mistake to give up a 3 (in that situation),” Pistons coach J.B. Bickerstaff said before the Blazers-Pistons game on Monday, “and you know you can protect that 3-point line.”
The Warriors were one of the eight teams that opted to play things out rather than foul up three, and all eight ended up winning. Of those eight, only one had the opponent tie the game on a 3-pointer. Portland gave up a game-tying 3 to Sacramento’s DeMar DeRozan and missed its own final shot but then won in overtime. (Blazers interim head coach Tiago Splitter told me before the Blazers game against Detroit on Monday that the Blazers’ intent was to foul up three in that situation, but a deflection messed up their strategy.)
However, there was one other situation where the game went to overtime, and that was a result of an inadvertent foul-up-three maneuver by a Utah team that was trying to play honest defense against Dallas.
Instead, it was a foul-up-three gone wrong — Dallas’ Cooper Flagg intentionally missed a free throw, Max Christie got the rebound, and a Utah foul sent him back to the line to tie the game. He nearly got an and-1 out of it and an instant loss for the Jazz:
Thus, while a mini-debate raged about foul-up-three strategies following the widely watched Spurs-Thunder ending, I’m not sure anything needs to be done, because it’s a questionable enough strategy that it seems likely to die out on its own. While some coaches, such as Splitter, are believers in fouling up three, and a broad swath might be described as “situationalists” who would do it on occasion depending on game conditions, the preponderance of the evidence suggests that coaches prefer to play defense in most late-game up-three situations.
“I know there’s some coaches who are steadfast, that we’re going to do it every single time,” Bickerstaff said. “A lot of times for us, just where we’ve been and how we believe in our defense, I think it adds a sense of pride and confidence to guys if you just tell them all you got to do is go out and get one stop. … We’ll let guys just go out, compete and get the stop.”
That’s the state of the foul-up-three debate, but let’s extend things a bit further: NBA coaches have another, related strategy lying unused in a high kitchen cupboard, just waiting for somebody to pull out a step stool, reach up and grab it.
Let me show you another play from last week at the end of Thursday’s New York-Indiana game. Indiana was up by two with 12 seconds left and New York inbounding, and then this happened:
That’s right. I’m not a big fan of “foul up three” … but how about “foul up two?”
There’s a real case for it: It takes away any chance of losing in regulation and guarantees your own team the last shot even if the opponent makes both free throws. It’s something European teams have done for years, but the ploy hasn’t gained traction in the NBA.
Partly that was because the defense had the advantage at the beginning of this century when analytics first came into vogue through the league, but that advantage has flipped mightily in the years since. Now, with the offense having the edge, coaches might prefer to be on offense in those final seconds. At the margins, a league where teams score 1.04 points per possession, as they did 1999-2000, is very different from one where they score 1.15, as they did in 2024-25.
I’ll allow that the Knicks might be the single worst team you might try this strategy against: Jalen Brunson is an 84.7 percent foul shooter and was the only New York player to touch the ball. Part of the appeal of foul-up-two is that you can get close to 50-50 odds of the other team failing to tie the score by fouling a 75 percent-ish foul shooter. (The league shoots 78.6 percent as a whole, and a team fouling up two would have some agency in choosing whom they sent to the stripe.) Additionally, any miss induces the threat of Mitchell Robinson (26.6 percent offensive rebound rate!) snaring the rebound and adding more points, inflicting the insta-loss you were trying to prevent in the first place.
But for most teams, in most situations, I think foul up two could have some real traction, especially in the time frame where 10-15 seconds remain on the clock and allow for a true possession opportunity at the offensive end.
Do the math: Overtime is a 50-50 proposition, plus you have a roughly 50-50 chance of winning in regulation if you have the final shot. That’s 75 percent victory odds from my simplistic foul-up-two model here, even if the other team makes both free throws every time. On the other hand, teams made 3-pointers on 13.7 percent of their possessions last season and are shooting them at about the same rate this year, meaning roughly one possession in eight can turn into the instant-death scenario. Even if the defending team came back with a last-second shot of their own on some of the made 3s, once you add in the other possessions with 2s and fouls (depending on the assumptions in your model), the foul-up-two strategy — with its implied 75 percent victory rate in the worst-case scenario — starts looking pretty good.
At least, it starts looking good enough that it’s odd to me that nobody has even thought to try it. If we get a couple more outcomes like the one at the end of Knicks-Pacers, maybe this will be the year some coaches at least become “situationalists” when it comes to fouling up two.
Travel geekery: G League Showcase
My stop in Orlando for the G League Winter Showcase was more brief than in past years, and I learned I wasn’t the only one cutting the trip short. While the event is an amazing one for scouts to scan the entire league in one trip, and for the league itself to bring all the teams, coaches, refs and staff together from their far-flung enterprise, it doesn’t quite dominate the calendar for execs the way it once did.
Blame two factors for that: the profusion of elite college matchups on late-December Saturdays between the end of college football regular season and the start of the bowls, and the decline in freely available talent in the G League as a result of the best 90 players already being signed to two-way contracts.
However, one notable takeaway from the Showcase stands out: Toronto’s quest to put together the best G League season in history. The 905s started the year 16-0 but, alas, were vanquished by the Salt Lake City Stars in the G League Showcase Cup finals. Even so, it was by far the best start in league annals. (The Memphis Hustle began the year 10-0 in 2019-20.)
The Stars raise their G League Winter Showcase trophy .(Taylor McFee / NBAE via Getty Images)
Even a roster this loaded, however, stands to offer little to other teams. The 905s best players (Jonathan Mogbo, A.J. Lawson, Alijah Martin and Chucky Hepburn) are signed to the Raptors roster already, and the next-best player, forward David Roddy, is a 27-year-old first-round pick who already washed out of the league.
If you’re looking for unaffiliated players from this event to sign two-way deals in the coming days, I’d look at a few other names instead: Moses Brown, a 7-foot-2 center who has been in the league before and dominated the G League’s smaller centers at the Showcase; Tristan Enaruna, a mobile 6-7 wing for the Cleveland Charge who may need to shoot better to stick; and Sean East II, a skillful pick-and-roll point guard for SLC with a Dennis Schröder-esque body type who tormented the 905s with 21 points and six assists in the final.
Cap geekery: Salary continuation payments
Merry Christmas, cap nerds! This year’s holiday stocking stuffer is a little-known provision in the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement called “salary continuation payments,” which happens when a player with a non-guaranteed contract is injured in the line of duty.
The Atlanta Hawks potentially face this situation times three, after two of their two-way players suffered season-ending injuries and center N’Faly Dante suffered an apparent serious knee injury in the G League Winter Showcase. (Atlanta has yet to issue a release on his condition; privately, Hawks officials acknowledged it wasn’t good.)
Date has a $2.1 million contract for this season, with only $85,300 of it guaranteed. Because of that, the Hawks could have waived him at any time without being on the hook for any of his remaining money … that is, until he got injured.
Now, Atlanta has to pay him until he’s able to get back on the court, which one suspects might not be until next season. As a result, he’s effectively on their books for $2.1 million even if the Hawks cut him and use the roster spot to sign a different player. The same applies to their two-way players. They were making $636,435 each but only had a fraction of that guaranteed if not for continuation payments; however, their money doesn’t count against the salary cap.
Thus, the Hawks are likely in an uncomfortable situation where it makes more sense to keep Dante’s $2.1 million salary on their books through the trade deadline to see if it can be traded, even though the team is desperately lacking size and would prefer to fill the slot immediately. It helps that the Hawks aren’t quite as hard-up against the tax and aprons as the Knicks; with an open roster spot and $5.4 million room below the tax line, this is a navigable problem.
But for those expecting Atlanta to waive Dante immediately if the team determines his injury is season-ending, that clause about salary continuation payments explains why it won’t happen.
Prospect of the Week: Caleb Wilson, 6-9 SF, North Carolina
Several executives left the G League Showcase early to attend Saturday’s CBS Sports Classic in Atlanta, and it didn’t disappoint. Evaluators get their first look at Kentucky center Jayden Quaintance in his team’s win over St. John’s, but the real prize was watching Caleb Wilson lead the Tar Heels to a 73-72 win over Ohio State in the nightcap.
Wilson posted his fourth straight game with exactly 20 points, while adding 15 rebounds, three blocks and two assists.
Despite a slender frame, he’s a monster on the glass, plucking defensive boards off the top of the rim and then using his ball skills to create instant transition opportunities. Watch here as he gets a traffic rebound, takes two dribbles upcourt and then fires a diagonal hit-ahead pass to create an easy dunk for a streaking Jarin Stevenson:
Wilson also flashes serious defensive potential with his mobility, shot-blocking and effort. Watch this block, for instance:
Three things made this play notable for me: the effort, the physicality and the discipline.
First, the effort: Wilson often plays while standing straight up and looks like he’s not engaged, but you keep watching and see his motor is impressive.
The clip begins with Wilson sprinting back into the play after a miscue at the other end had left him on his rump under the basket. Full end-to-end sprints sometimes are a hard thing to pick up on TV but glaringly obvious in person when you have the whole 94 feet in your view, and this was not the only time that Wilson put it into overdrive to change ends.
Second, the physicality. That’s Ohio State upperclassman Devin Royal looking to create space by dropping a shoulder into the slender Wilson, but it doesn’t knock Wilson off the play for long. He was able to quickly recover and still be in position to block Royal’s shot.
And finally, the discipline. The biggest weakness most young shot blockers have is thirst, resulting in getting faked out of their shoes chasing blocks. Wilson recovered after Royal’s bump on him but did so with discipline, staying down on the first shot fake before bounding up to swat his attempt on the second one.
I could go one here, because Wilson had a fine offensive game too. He had a gorgeous Euro step finish in transition and showed a real knack for using spin moves to gain advantages and open angles for him to use his length to finish. He also showed good footwork when he operated in close quarters and made the right play out of double-teams when the Buckeyes began throwing extra bodies his way in the second half.
For the season, he has an awesome 31.4 PER, including a 19.1 percent rebound rate, and he’s doing this as a one-and-done on a North Carolina team that has played a fairly challenging early schedule.
All that has him firmly on the lottery radar, but can he crash the top three picks? To do that, he probably needs to show scouts more consistently as a shooter, where he’s at 28.4 percent from 3 and 71.4 percent from the line, and produce at this level in an ACC cauldron that includes highly ranked bluebloods like Duke, Louisville, resurgent programs like NC State and Miami and, of course, academic powerhouse Virginia.