Wolves coach Chris Finch says physicality in NBA playoffs has ‘gone way too far’ and ‘disrupted the flow’

To Minnesota Timberwolves coach Chris Finch, the physicality in the postseason is out of control.

“If you look around the playoffs right now, I mean, it’s super physical,” Finch told reporters Thursday. “To me, they’ve gone way too far on the physicality.”

Finch stressed that he was not complaining about the way the series between the Timberwolves and the Los Angeles Lakers, in particular, had been reffed. He was making a point about the type of contact that has been allowed in general.

“It feels like it’s physicality without purpose,” Finch said. “It’s disrupted the flow. If there’s not a fight in that Houston–Golden State series, I’d be surprised. I mean, that thing just feels like it’s on the edge every single time. You play 82 games in a certain way and then they flip the switch, and I do worry about the ability to be able to control that. But that’s what they want, and that’s what we’re getting right now.”

He continued: “My problem with right now is it just feels out of context. It feels like it’s not the right type of physicality that we’re trying to kind of integrate into our game. But we’ll just have to kind of keep working through it.”

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Brad Botkin

Broadly speaking, there is a leaguewide understanding that playoff basketball is supposed to be physical. You would be hard pressed to find coaches or players who want to be worried about touch fouls and incidental contact at this time of year. There is a massive difference, though, between “letting the players play” and allowing defenders to consistently grab and hold offensive players away from the ball, allowing loose-ball situations to turn into wrestling matches. In the Warriors–Rockets series, Finch mentioned that the contact taking place on an average possession has been startling, and it has led to several altercations between players.

After one uncalled foul in Game 2, TNT analyst Stan Van Gundy said on the broadcast, “Boy, I really wish we could have guarded like this when I had to coach against Steph Curry. [Alperen Sengun] just put his left arm around his hip on that play and took him down. I go back to [when Kentavious Caldwell-Pope] used to have to guard him, and KCP was great on him, but, if he could have done this, it would have been a lot easier.”

That series has been particularly physical — and chippy — but you can find similar stuff in just about every game that has been played. This is primarily an aesthetic issue (what happened to freedom of movement?) at the moment, but, if it’s not addressed, it could quickly turn into a player-safety issue.