Signaling a Charge in Basketball

Video Transcript

"DAVE TYLER: Charging is an offensive violation when the dribbler runs over or run--perhaps stops and makes a pass and then runs over a defending player who's already situated. This is one of the most difficult calls for an official to make because the opposite of a charge would be a block. So an official has to make a call in a split second of his judgement if the dribbler was out of control and ran the defender over or if the defender moved his feet at the last second to get in the way of the offensive player. The proper mechanic for a charge is, again, stop the whistle, right hand goes behind and then you'd point the way that the team going with the ball would go. We're going to see a couple of different examples here of a charge. Here--first, we're going to see a charge where the dribbler just simply comes in and runs over the defensive player who's situated and he runs over the defensive player. In that situation, we have a charge. We have a whistle and then point to the way the ball would be going. The other situation here is a block where the--just the opposite of a charge, where the dribbler is coming around and he--at the last second, he tries to get in front of him. There we have his feet were never set so the official would call that a block and the ball would go to side out. There we have a block where his feet--the defensive player's feet are moving. Once again, you see the big difference is the charge is when he runs him over, basically."