[M&M Guy]

I'm not sure I remember this being discussed recently, although I'm sure it has at some point. This was a play that a friend of mine experienced.

Situation: Team B is out of timeouts. Team A scores, and is now up by 2, with the clock under 5 seconds. B1 grabs the ball, and signals a TO request to the nearest official. The official ignores the request, and the clock runs out to end the game before B1 even steps OOB for the throw-in. Team A's coach (the team that won), wanted to know why the official did not grant the request, thereby giving team B the T, with team A getting 2 shots and possesion, and effectively icing the game. The coach's argument was if B1 had taken the ball out after his request was ignored, and a desparation shot had gone in, team A would've lost due to the official not calling the TO, and the resulting T.

So the question is: the rule states the official "shall" grant the timeout request; is that the same as the official "must" grant the request? Does the coach have a point? Or does the official have some judgement in whether the (excess) TO is granted, even if the request is "legitimate" in all other repects? In this sitch, the player wasn't jumping up and down yelling for the TO; he just looked at the official, gave a quick signal with his hands, saw he was being ignored, looked at his coach (who was probably yelling for him to hurry and inbound the damn ball!), as the clock ran out.

Thoughts?