On Charges

From my point of view, taking a charge is the best defensive play you can make. Besides reversing the flow of play, it puts a foul on the player who gives the charge (and given that they're in a position to be charging, it's likely that this is one of their better scoring options), it negates any basket, and it gives the ball to the team that takes the charge. It's a wonder that more players don't take them.

Well, for one, few refs are going to call the charge every single time. It's a controversial call, and refs are hesitant to shift momentum in such a manner, unless it helps the NBA's ratings. Two, it's incredibly difficult to get into position fast enough and not get called for blocking. Sometimes a little bit of deceptiveness takes place (see: Jermaine O'Neal shifted right just as Kobe was getting to the basket. More on this later), but that's the rule and not the exception when it comes to defense, Bobby Jones be damned.

Finally, charges are immensely taxing on the body. Taking a charge hurts. Plus, if you're in the proper position to take a charge, you're falling straight on your ass with nothing to break the fall, and if you're in the wrong position, you're landing on your spine and your skull. Bad in most cases.

Also worth noting is the negative stigma that comes from taking charges. While players who are willing to take the charge are endlessly praised by their own team (what with the defensive hustle and testicular fortitude necessary to absorb the force of a 6'9, 280 pound object barreling into you), it's fairly common (and understandable, if not necessarily true) for coaches to pick up a T in the course of bitching over a charging foul that should have been a blocking foul. And for what it's worth, I'd estimate a good 70% of charging/blocking calls could go either way. Therefore, getting a charge: pretty big deal. Players who are/were notable for taking charges either get categorized into defensive workhorses (Battier, Bowen, Ben Wallace) or tough guys who are willing to 'block shots' in their own special way (Iverson, Nash, Fisher.) Then again, if they're European/foreign, they're dirty, dirty floppers (Ginobili, Nocioni, Varejao, Bell, Kirilenko, Divac [Well... if the shoe fits...])

So, Jermaine O'Neal, who has taken at least 100 charges (and that's a conservative estimate) throughout his career, comes up with probably the biggest regular-season charge of his career. I can't find a video of it. I assume that all copies of the tape have been destroyed, as there can be no trace of Kobe committing a crunch-time error.*

This is one of those defensive plays that gets no love on Sportscenter, because it wasn't a monster block (and to be fair, it's no fun watching people take charges unless they're Andrei Kirilenko), but it gave Miami the ball back with 18.7 seconds to go and forced Los Angeles to foul. The Lakers were now demoralized, and momentum shifted back to the Heat. It'd be hyperbole to call it the play of the game, but I don't think it'd be inaccurate to say that O'Neal's charge is what clinched it for the Heat, put them at .500 and 1.5 games ahead of Charlotte, and put them in a position where other teams in the Eastern Conference must take them seriously-ish. Will they get eliminated in four by the Cavs? Certainly. They'll be scraping up the remains of Quentin Richardson from the floor and fashioning him into a hat for Steve Nash to make stylish. But they beat the best collection of talent in the NBA, and that counts for something, even if just their pride.

Way to take one for the team, Jermaine.




*As I mentioned before, O'Neal definitely shifted to the right as Kobe was coming in, and it should've been a blocking foul. I'll let it slide because it gives me an excuse to talk about charging, and for every other 800 times this season that a superstar will get a call they don't deserve when they barrel into the lane, don't have a shot, and end up throwing the ball out of bounds on an ill-conceived layup attempt. You know who you are.