DeAndre Jordan sets NBA Playoff record for most free throw attempts in a half
DeAndre Jordan got hacked all the way to an NBA Playoff record in game four.
DeAndre Jordan keeps getting intentionally fouled. It’s been happening to the Los Angeles Clippers center for the entirety of the 2014-15 NBA season and it has only gotten worse against the Houston Rockets in the second round of the playoffs. In fact, it went to historic levels on Sunday night in game four.
Jordan set a playoff record in Game 4 as he attempted 28 free throws in the first half, the most in any half in history:
Clippers lead Rockets at half, 60-54. DeAndre Jordan sets playoff record for most FTA in a single half w/ 28 (10-28). pic.twitter.com/kBKXmOtYkV
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) May 11, 2015
It’s a sound strategy to intentionally foul a poor free throw shooter, but that’s just absurd.
In fairness to the Rockets, the strategy worked in their favor. Jordan hit just 10 of those 28 attempts, good for only a meager 35.7 percent clip on the night. The Clippers might be up by much more than six points at halftime if they weren’t hacking Jordan at such a historically high rater.
From a viewer’s perspective, though, the hacking of Jordan resulted in an abomination of a first half. Two quarters is 24 minutes of game play in the NBA. That 24 minutes of game time took 84 minutes of actual time to complete. Even if you live, breathe, and die by hoops, no one half of basketball should take five minutes fewer than the run time of The Lion King.
The hacking got so bad in the first half, that the refs even blatantly tried to not call an intentional foul on Jordan (and they would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for that pesky Austin Rivers).
This is only going to further the conversation that a rule change regarding intentional fouling is in order. After suffering through that first half of basketball, it’s hard not to agree with the camp in favor of changing the rules.