NBA commissioner David Stern is determined to stop the floppers, even if it takes until the next morning.
Stern said too many players are deceiving referees into calling fouls by falling down, or flopping. So he and the league’s newly reformed competition committee met Monday for a discussion about how flopping can be prevented.
One option, Stern said, is a “postgame analysis” in which a player could be penalized if it was determined he flopped. The league retroactively upgrades or downgrades flagrant fouls after review.
“We just want to put a stake in the ground that says this is not something that we want to be part of our game, without coming down with a sledgehammer but just doing it in a minimalist way to begin stamping it out,” Stern said.
BOBCATS PICK COACH
The Charlotte Bobcats reportedly hired St. John’s assistant Mike Dunlap to replace Paul Silas as coach.
Dunlap, 54, coached former Mount Tahoma High and University of Washington guard C.J. Massingale at Metro State in Denver in 2003-04.
Dunlap was an assistant coach with the Denver Nuggets (2006-08) as well as in the Pacific-10 Conference with USC (1986-89), Arizona (2008-09) and Oregon (2009-10).
He was originally one of the 10 candidates to interview, but the team trimmed the list to former Utah coach Jerry Sloan, Indiana assistant coach Brian Shaw and Lakers assistant coach Quin Snyder last week.
FASTBREAKS
Game 3 television ratings were down slightly from last year but overall the average rating through three games is the highest since 2004. The Heat’s 91-85 win Sunday earned an 8.8 rating, a 3 percent drop from last year’s Dallas Mavericks-Heat matchup. The Finals are averaging a 9.7, up 7 percent from 2011. … Hornets president Hugh Weber is leaving the club after new owner Tom Benson appointed Dennis Lauscha and Mickey Loomis, top executives of Benson’s New Orleans Saints, to oversee both teams. Loomis, general manager of the Saints, will also head up the Hornets’ basketball operations and oversee Hornets GM Dell Demps. Loomis worked from 1983-98 in the front office for the Seattle Seahawks. He is suspended for the first eight NFL games this season for his role in the New Orleans bounty scandal. … A Florida jury awarded disgraced former referee Tim Donaghy $1.3 million in a lawsuit against the company that published his memoir, saying he wasn’t paid. Donaghy, 45, spent 13 months in federal prison after admitting in 2008 that he took thousands of dollars from a professional gambler in exchange for inside tips. … Six teams in NBA Finals history have lost Game 1 of the title series and then swept the next four. … Derek Fisher’s four-point play for Oklahoma City in Game 3 was the 12th in Finals history.
