The simultaneous NBA and NFL playoffs, known as the second season, can be almost as exhausting and frustrating for the fans as it is for the players. For Avs and Nuggets fans, this year was especially disappointing, even though we knew that 15 of the 16 teams in the playoff bracket are fated to lose their last game.         

It’s an alleged truism that the NBA and NHL playoffs require a different kind of play than in the regular season. I think that’s a falseism. The leagues don’t change the rules for the playoffs; they change the way refs officiate. Openly changing the rules invites public controversy and requires negotiation with the players’ union on the CBA. I’m biased because the Avs and Nuggets are skill teams more than overly physical and dirty ones. The Avs won the Presidents’ Trophy, having the best regular-season record in the NHL over 82 games. It’s senseless to make teams play under one set of rules in the first six months of the season and different unwritten ones in the last two.  

 The NBA has the bigger problem. Officiating is more difficult than in other sports. Play is so fast and congested in the paint and under the rim that officials routinely make an educated guess as to whether a foul was committed and by whom. That’s unavoidable, but hedging the rules isn’t. The playoffs should be the highest-quality version of the sport, not one over emphasizing defense creating inconsistent calls by different refs with subjective judgment on “marginal contact.” There used to be the “one arm, bent elbow” rule, allowing a defensive player to place one hand with a bent elbow on an offensive player’s back, or one forearm on his back, maintaining contact only as long as the defender isn’t pushing or dislodging the player. Today, you see a defender bear-hugging an offensive player or wrapping himself around Nikola Jokic in a pretzel hold. That’s wrestling, not basketball. In the NHL, the unofficial playoff rules overly tolerate interference penalties, cross-checking, and holding.  

In both leagues, management wants more physicality, fewer whistles and more drama.  Teams short on superstars exploit that with brute force, putting a target on the superstars’ backs.  Serious injuries contributed to both the Avs and Nuggets eliminations in the playoffs. The skating-wounded included Avs superstars Makar and McKinnon. Their 4-0 loss to Vegas in the third round wasn’t the same team that beat the Kings 4-0 and the Wild 4-1.  

I’m no pacifist when it comes to rough physical play in the NHL. The fans thrive on that. Fighting is condoned in the rules. For anything short of homicide, you just get two or five minutes in the penalty box.  (In other sports, you get ejected.)  Hit a guy in the head with your stick and you get 2 minutes in the box or a few more if it draws blood. Hockey and football are true contact sports. Basketball isn’t and ought not to be. Compared to the padding and helmets worn by players in the NHL and NFL, NBA players suit up in their underwear.              

It really annoys me to watch the OKC Thunder Alex Caruso’s defensive malpractice spooning Jamal Murray. He’s virtually in Murray’s shorts. It’s a foul as well as obscene. Or the low-skill Isaia Hartenstein blatantly pulling on Jokic’s jersey while holding his arm in a hammer lock. On offense, SGA habitually initiates contact going to the basket, then sharply veers sideways into a defender who gets unjustly called for blocking. (SGA learned that move from James Harden.) This is a travesty and everyone knows it. Why does the NBA let them and others get away with this stuff?  Most fans don’t like it. 

The NBA has a flopping penalty but won’t enforce it, leery of the nightly controversy. The NHL, likewise, has an “embellishment” penalty but rarely calls it because its players’ culture disapproves of flopping.          

One final note. During the playoffs, networks like ESPN and TNT displaced Altitude’s cable coverage of Avs and Nuggets games. I much prefer Altitude’s local broadcasters. The network guys often prattle on ignoring what’s going on in the game. The courtside interviews with players, conducted by a token female commentator, are worthless with stock questions like, ”How are you going to close the gap in the second half.”  With stock answers like, “We need to be more aggressive, play better defense, and hit more 3’s.” Then the networks distractingly run the recorded interview on split screen while play has already started at the beginning of a quarter. Ugh!  

Mike Rosen is a Denver-based American radio personality and political commentator.