[Freddy]

Situation tonight for fellow official who asked me prompts these questions of you.
His Situation: A1 has player control under pressure from B2 and B3. Official hears from the bench area, "Time out! Time out!" Official, assuming it is the head coach making the request, grants the time out -- only to find out when he turns around it was not requested by the head coach but by the assistant.


Question #1: May a timeout request be properly granted only if made by a player or a head coach?
3-1-2 and 5-8-3 seem to say so.

Question #2: If an assistant coach's request for a timeout was granted by an official, could that the granting of that request, if illegitimate by rule, be retracted so that an "inadvertent whistle" situation results, ala 5.8.3 E, (b): the Team A head coach is yelling “side out” offensive instructions to his/her team and the official stops play believing the coach requested a time-out.
I'm guessing that if the head coach does not desire a timeout, it can be retracted by the official, resulting in an inadvertent whistle and ball out at POI. If the head coach wants the timeout, he'd just say so before the official retracts it and life would go on as normal.

Am I missing something here?