Kevin Durant loses balance and control of the ball as his long, wiry frame takes a tumble and the first quarter clock strikes zeroes. Memphis pressured the in-bounds play with just 1.7 seconds left in the quarter, which would have been time only for an ill-fated heave, but against a player like Durant, you prefer not to take chances. Durant gets up and turns his head back toward the nearby referee as he walks to the sideline, offering a cold stare as an answer to a frozen whistle.

“You’ve got a feeling this one’s going to get a little physical before it’s all said and done,” ESPN play-by-play commentator Mark Jones says, wrapping up the action as the Worldwide Leader segues to commercial.

A little physical, eh? Sure, I’ll stay tuned; maybe someone will get poked in the eye.

“Physical” has become a buzzword of these playoffs, particularly of this second round. We’re hoping to see some “physical” play out there, as if the NBA status quo is tea kettles and garden parties.

If I were watching an ESPN broadcast of chess, and the commentator teased a break by saying “this one’s going to get a little physical,” I would drop whatever I’m doing and glue myself to the television. I would call friends, place bets, buy a T-shirt, the works.

But we’re watching basketball, a sport where your best weapon down low is a slippery glaze of sweat, and where inadvertently touching someone dichotomously is and is not a foul, depending on the context. But what Jones really means when he tells me to prepare for physical play is that Durant is angry at Memphis’ persistent defense. In particular, he felt he was undercut by Tony Allen and that caused him to fall. What could his retaliation be?

Officials have control of what the word “physical” means in the NBA, and their good intentions are yielding very sour results.

The NBA has held an iron leash on physical play since the Malice at the Palace in November 2004. Officials are afraid of fights breaking out and are quick with a whistle, a technical, an ejection — whatever necessary to keep the peace. After the Bulls’ infamous streak-busting win March 29 against Miami, LeBron James complained about the Bulls’ hard fouls being “non-basketball” plays. Which is absurd, because they definitely helped Chicago win a basketball game.

Nonetheless, the play was deemed “too violent.” Suddenly we were trying to avoid a fight. The Bulls were playing too rough, provoking LeBron like that. It wasn’t basketball. Physical basketball wasn’t basketball.

Watching Bulls-Heat Game 3, my buddy Jeff Van Gundy said something I didn’t think was mind-numbingly unhelpful, which is rare. He said the Bulls-Heat series isn’t as physical as Grizzlies-Clippers (from round one) or Knicks-Pacers (from round two). I scoffed at that notion originally because the Bulls and Heat had been quite nearly fighting each other.

But he was right. Watch the post players in the different series, and it’s not like the Bulls and Heat are throwing their hips around, banging buns and staking out position.

Something is definitely going on here, but it’s not physical basketball. It’s a bitter Chicago team nipping at the heels of a Miami team whose contrived poise is drawing Chicago’s focus away from strategic physicality to frustrated physicality.

“I see how things are going,” Tom Thibodeau ominously stated after Game 3 in a press conference that landed him a $35,000 fine. Presumably he was talking about the referees, quick to whistle a veritably bullying Chicago team but forgetting to call the quiet and composed James for a single personal foul in 44 minutes of play. If you question the fairness of this, David Stern will mow down your finances.

That’s the battle for Chicago as much as any — to promote a brand of basketball that’s being phased out by the league. The way Miami plays is beautiful, productive and soft. When the Bulls try to play physical now, they just get called for a lot of fouls. The old NBA adage that if you foul every play, the officials can only call so many, is being proved wrong.

The Bulls are looking to impose physicality anyway, and if they can’t do it during the game they do it after the whistle. An unnecessary shove to Chris Andersen. A wonderful shove to LeBron James’ chest. Those are non-basketball plays. They aren’t helping the Bulls win any basketball games, which Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra echoed in his postgame press conference, where he called both shoves “inconsequential” plays — to his credit, it was a great backhanded insult to Nazr Mohammed, who was ejected for shoving James “to the floor” (he accentuated things a bit).

Scrappy and physical are wholly different adjectives. The Bulls series has been scrappy. The play of Zach Randolph, physical.

The report out of Chicago is an expectation of the “physical” play to continue. And honestly, I think the Bulls are trying to achieve the proper type of physicality. But the NBA is becoming a haven for soft, sexy, speedy basketball. That’s not good for a team that needs to win ugly.

Nothing happened in the Grizzlies-Thunder game. No fights, no flagrants, no technicals. Just physical basketball. And the Grizzlies won.

Eliot is a senior in Media. He can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @EliotTweet.