NBA Players Crying About The In Season Tournament Point Differential Is Extremely Embarrassing

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While everyone is still getting used to the new In Season Tournament, there's obviously going to be a learning curve for both teams and fans. We're all still programmed to really only view these games as normal regular season games, only with fancy new courts. As someone that has enjoyed the tournament games and think this has the potential to be a perfectly fine idea, whenever I watch them my brain still thinks about what the results mean for the actual regular season and not really what it means for the IST. My guess is that will change over time, but for now, it really hasn't made me care more about the games. Granted I already cared about them to begin with, but I understand I'm probably in the minority there.

Part of the learning curve of course is tied to the point differential aspect. While these still may feel like normal regular season games, given the rules and the importance of point differential, how teams handle them is certainly not the same. Now, no matter what the score is, it is in the best interest of teams to keep stacking points. Every second until the final buzzer can matter. While normally you see teams dribble out the clock up big, that is not what happens during IST games and already we're seeing NBA players have an issue with this.

First there was DeRozan who lost his shit when the Raptors were going for points despite being up 120-108 in the final seconds

Here's the problem with this line of thinking. What Siakam did was within the rules of the IST. Again, point differential matters in this thing. If you don't like it, play defense until the final whistle. In the normal regular season, these final possessions don't matter. The result is the result. But….this is an entirely different thing, so as a result the players need to act accordingly. Getting mad that Siakam took a 3 in that spot sounds to me like DeMar is probably more upset that his team stinks. 

He's also certainly not the only player we've heard this from. Jayson Tatum came out and essentially said the same thing

I will say to Jayson the same thing I would say to DeMar or any other player who also has this complaint/stance.

If you don't like it, play defense. Stop them from scoring. It's that simple.

I would argue that playing to point differential through the final whistle is actually showing the IST respect. It's respecting the rules and what these games are. This is also how I feel when you hear players complain that a guy may do some sort of crazy dunk after a turnover at the end of a blowout. Instead of crying about it, maybe don't turn the ball over. 

As long as point differential is going to be used in tie breakers, then you need to play to the final whistle. Listen, $500K is no joke, especially to some of the end of bench guys. I don't think it's "disrespecting the game" or "disrespecting an opponent" that a team tries to do everything they can to increase their chances of winning that money, especially when it is very specifically within the rules to do so. 

For example, on Friday the Celts got absolutely waxed by the Magic. I cannot imagine anyone having a problem with the Magic still trying to score until the final whistle, despite it being clear the game was over. Did Franz Wagner need to take a shot with 9 seconds left to go from up 15 to up 17? Nope. Is it a big deal that he did? Also nope. Maybe the bigger problem was getting down by 15+ points to begin with, but what do I know? That beatdown is what brought the Celts point differential to 0 and has their IST chances on life support and guess what? Oh well, play better defense next time. Actually run an offense down the stretch. These are all things I would advise both DeRozan and Tatum to do instead of crying that players are trying until the final buzzer.

I do think that as we have more of these games and the years go by and players get more familiar with the IST, we'll see less crying like this. Because honestly, it's very embarrassing. There's no real defending it. Again if you don't want this to happen to you, play until the final buzzer. Once you get back to a non-IST game, you won't have to worry about this. But for those games, point differential and a full 48 minute effort matters. I struggle to see how that's a bad thing.