[assignmentmaker]

I hope officials are not interposing their own judgment as to whether or not a timeout should be granted if the request comes during a live ball.

Drawing on the bag of family tricks I'm proud to say, one of my children was faced with going back out on the floor from his team's last timeout, instructed by the coach not to call one. His team, Team A, was down 5 with 12 seconds to go. They shot a 3, now down 2, but by the time B1 saunters out of bounds with the ball and the official begins his count, there's 4 seconds left. My son requests a timeout and it's granted. Now they're down 2 with 3 seconds left. Team B makes 1 of 2 technical foul shots, up 3, and goes to inbound the ball at halfcourt opposite the table. Team A plays finest kind of defense and Team B throws the inbounds pass out of bounds on the other side of the court. Team A inbounds and . . . misses the 3, but they got a good look and had a chance, because the official did not hesitate to grant to request for timeout.