As someone who has followed the NBA for 10-15 years (albeit somewhat casually), it never made sense to me why it was acceptable for teams to mentally check out once the game was deemed “over”. So much so that it is seen as disrespectful for the winning team to keep trying in “garbage time”. Coming from a soccer background, the culture is such that regardless of the score you always play your hardest till the last minute, and players are regularly chastised for “giving up”.

It only feels right to provide your paying audience with your maximum effort for the whole duration of the game. What more, it’s not even pure lip service, either! There have been countless last minute comebacks that seemed absolutely improbable because teams played till the last minute, even if they lacked belief themselves. It’s not even like it’s impossible in basketball for these sort of comebacks to occur (I’m thinking TMac scoring 13 points in 13 seconds in 2004). For those saying something like that happening is an edge case and near impossible, why does that give NBA athletes the license to not try when they’re still in the position to attempt to make a difference?

Right now, the controversy surrounding the In-Season Tournament’s tie breaker rules being based on point differential has led to so much controversy about it “taking away the integrity of the game” by numerous players, but to me, the fact that players treat the game is essentially over once they decide it’s too difficult to come back and expect their opponents to also effectively stop playing is what takes away the integrity of the game.