really do what they can to encourage offense. The league wants that. They want final scores like 130 to 125. They want triple doubles and 50-point games and other huge statistics that get headlines.

So the league tells the refs to call the games closely. Essentially anyone who actually plays real defense is gonna get whistled for lots of fouls - especially guarding a flopper like Harden. But then the alternative is to play very soft defense - which is what the NBA actually wants - but then that forces you to give up a lot of open looks to the other team, which obviously is not ideal for a team trying to play defense.