Why NBA fans shouldn’t be mad about teams’ strategy of fouling when leading by 3

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I’m having some cognitive dissonance about the “foul-up-three” ploy the Oklahoma City Thunder used Monday at the end of Game 4 of the Western Conference finals.

All I’m reading on social media is that the NBA needs to do something to penalize this strategy because it’s too much of an advantage.

And all I’m thinking is that the league needs to stop coaches from using this strategy because they keep screwing it up and botching a hugely favorable win-probability scenario. I’m spending the last 20 seconds of every game screaming, “What are you guys doing?!” at my TV.

Before we go forward, let’s back up. I’m a bit surprised that now is the moment we’ve decided this is horrible, because the foul-up-three ploy has been around almost as long as the 3-pointer itself. Notably, the Houston Rockets used it at the end of their Game 7 “kiss of death” game against the Phoenix Suns in 1995 after Mario Elie’s shot put them up three with 7.1 seconds left. (I’ll go more retro: My opponents in a 1989 high school game were trying to foul up three — in only the second year my state had the 3-point line!)

Generally speaking, a team with a three-point lead in the final seconds of a game is in an incredibly favorable position. Not only does the opponent have to make a 3 to extend the game, but the opponent knows it has to make a 3 to extend the game.

Thus, the 3s you end up seeing in those situations often look like this one, from when the Indiana Pacers conspicuously did not foul up three at the end of Game 2 against New York when the Knicks gained possession with 14.1 seconds left:

An opponent 3 doesn’t result in a loss; it results in a worst-case scenario of the game being tied and continuing. And often, even in these situations, the opponent 3 comes before the buzzer, which means the team with the lead still has a possession to respond. In the NBA, where a team can advance the ball with a timeout, this can be particularly powerful if a team has a timeout left.

As a result, the foul-up-three isn’t quite the life hack some people seem to think. However, there is one particular situation where it is valuable: the old Stan Van Gundy rule of fouling up three when the clock is inside six seconds.

Even then, it can be difficult to execute. If the opponent is inbounding from the frontcourt after a timeout and can go straight into a shot, it brings the risk of a three-shot foul. Teams are probably better off defending in that situation.

Here’s a scenario where the Pacers didn’t foul because of the risk of the player shooting immediately and were less fortunate: Jaylen Brown’s shot from Game 1 of the 2024 Eastern Conference finals. Watch Pascal Siakam conspicuously not fouling as Brown’s heave finds the net:

Indiana then couldn’t score itself with 5.7 seconds left and lost in overtime, eventually being swept by the Boston Celtics.

(Indiana, I will note, also did not foul up three in overtime of Game 1 against New York, with 15.1 seconds left. New York forced up a similarly wild miss from Jalen Brunson; an offensive rebound produced a better look for Karl-Anthony Towns, but he missed too. Even if he had made it, Indiana would have had roughly five seconds to respond and retake the lead.)

So, back to Game 4 of Thunder-Timberwolves.

Minnesota’s last possession slammed into the golden Van Gundy Rule scenario where fouling up three makes the most sense: having no timeouts and needing to advance the ball the length of the court, with only six seconds left. Oklahoma City’s Alex Caruso could give the foul and be relatively certain that Anthony Edwards wouldn’t pull up from 60 feet and make it a three-shot scenario.

(While we’re here: The other foul-up-three loophole nobody has tried exploiting, courtesy of Ken Pomeroy, is to foul up three in the waning seconds and then continuously commit lane violations on the second free throw until the other team makes it — thus eliminating the intentional miss and put-back scenario. A smart ref might eventually hit the team with a delay-of-game violation, two of which result in a technical foul.)

However, Oklahoma City’s earlier strategy — fouling Naz Reid when Lu Dort had him bottled up in the corner with 7.0 seconds left — was much more questionable. The reason why is contained in the two previous playoff games where this strategy overtly failed — the early foul-up-three introduces more possessions, and thus more variance, into a game where the team up three had an overwhelming advantage.

The success of the Thunder’s strategy depended on a clean inbound pass against a pressing opponent, and then matching the opponent’s success at the free-throw line to maintain the three-point lead and foul once again.

This is particularly true when teams foul with more than 10 seconds left on the clock, as the Thunder did in Game 1 against the Denver Nuggets and the Knicks did in Game 1 against Indiana. The Thunder’s strategy worked out so well that they lost, in regulation and by two. Great work, everyone. The Knicks would have also lost in regulation had Tyrese Haliburton’s foot been half a size smaller; they ended up losing in overtime instead.

The key problem was that Oklahoma City began fouling ridiculously early, with 12.2 seconds left on the clock. Denver ended up with three possessions in 10 seconds, where it normally would have had one, making four free throws and then an Aaron Gordon 3-pointer with 2.8 seconds left.

Ditto for the Knicks, who fouled Aaron Nesmith with 12.2 seconds left in regulation in Game 1 and defensive ace OG Anunoby draped all over him. When Anunoby missed a free throw at the other end, the Pacers were only down two and still had 7.1 seconds left, taking away the foul-up-three on the last trip and leaving just enough time for Haliburton’s shot to touch the sky and fall through the net at the buzzer.

It’s a point I’ve made over and over, but I will make again: The foul-up-three, especially with more than six seconds on the clock, is the only realistic way the leading team can lose in regulation.

With all that said, let’s circle back to the main point. There’s an idea out there that something needs to be “done” about the foul-up-three because it ruins the end of games. Right now I’d argue more the opposite: That it’s making the end of games more exciting, because coaches keep screwing it up and giving away games they shouldn’t lose.

Also, the instances where it is truly advantageous are so specific — defending team up three, less than six seconds left, opponent not in a position to get into a shooting motion — that I wonder what a rule to address this would even look like and how often it would come into play.

That said … I wanted to see Edwards make a bull rush up the court and fling up a desperation 3 for the tie Monday just like everyone else. Also, casual fans can probably appreciate that type of play more than his near-perfect free-throw miss that yielded a mayhem rebounding situation (10 guys went all out for the board, and it hit the ground before anyone got it) and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander eventually flinging the ball from his back to an eager fan sitting courtside.

The foul-up-three also drags out the end of games, which might be good in some ways (sponsor dollars!) but is probably more of a negative in the big picture, especially since the league seems pretty concerned about fitting games into a two-and-a-half-hour window.

So, if we really wanted the league’s competition committee to legislate this, one possibility is to say that, if the offense is in the bonus, a take foul by the winning team up by three points in the last six seconds (or eight or 10, whatever the committee thinks is appropriate) is one shot and the ball out of bounds. But the league needs to be very careful about the wording of any rule, given the huge potential for unintended consequences.

Either way, the thing I can’t emphasize enough is that A) we’re legislating an extremely specific situation, and B) thus far this postseason, coaches inadvertently have done more to create excitement by fouling up three than they have to remove it. We only got Haliburton’s and Gordon’s shots because coaches screwed up the scenario.

That’s why, for me, the story isn’t that the foul-up-three needs to be addressed by the rules committee; it’s that it needs to be addressed in coaches’ meetings. Indiana is doing it right; Oklahoma City and New York, not so much, even if the Thunder ultimately hung on in Game 4.

(Top photo: Patrick Smith / Getty Images)

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