An NBA player who commits six personal fouls is eliminated from the game. A regulation NBA game lasts 48 minutes. A game that ends after one overtime period lasts 53 minutes. If you are allowed six fouls in 48 minutes, why would you not be allowed more than that if the game lasts longer? Yes, if you do it strictly proportionally then the overtime period would need to be eight minutes rather than five in order to justify the additional foul; but these are not proportional minutes! The five overtime minutes are the most tense, high-leverage minutes of the game; five is plenty for the extra foul!
Admittedly, fouls and foul shots are not particularly entertaining. You know what is, though? Seeing the best basketball players on the planet play through the end of games close enough to be tied after four quarters of play. A star player fouling out in overtime because they accumulated a sixth foul is garbage; it’s terrible!
This did not occur in Monday’s Knicks-Celtics game, but it could have! Multiple players were in foul trouble through much of the game; but they made it all the way through the end of the fourth intact. To be sure, fouling out during regulation would be final — only those who make it through are gifted that seventh foul. And yes, if the game goes to a second overtime, add one more foul to the tally, and so on; there’s more game! What, you want starting NBA players to simply foul out of a triple overtime game, a thing so rare it hasn’t happened since 2022? Do you hate fun?
I await the inevitable gratitude from the league’s competition committee in the offseason.
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