Agree

If someone in the crew says they were counting, we will go with that. If everyone drops the ball then I don't think there is anything else you can do.

You agreed that there should be a small deduction for the throw in touch.

A dribble and shot are part of the scenario. I am not sure how you can go back to the throw in touch if the play was not blown dead at this point. If a dribble and shot take place, giving the ball back to the throw in team with essentially the same amount of time left is much worse than approximating how much time expired and awarding the ball to the rebounding team or going to the arrow if a rebound was not secured when the whistle sounded. Hopefully some one has a count. If not, we have to do our best to establish that.

I heard a couple years ago at a college camp that you can count the dribbles to take off time. A dribble = ~1 second. Now I've never heard that from anyone else if that says anything about that advice's legitimacy.

Mark T. D. Your take on all of this please...

Absolutely not. Consider a high dribble versus a very low dribble. The time is not even close to being the same for each.

Good point. So you think perhaps a high dribble is 1.2 seconds whereas a low dribble is 0.8? And a "normal" dribble is 1 second? I think you might be on to something here bucky.

Should be? If possible, but if you don't know how much, you can't.

Who said anything about giving it back to the throwin team? Once the shot is taken, that is no longer an option. You fix the clock with whatever you KNOW (not guess) and go to the POI.

I may not do that, but I don't have a problem with that (rules wise). You're counting something. It may not be precise but it is definite. Many officials' actual counts are probably not any more precise.

One dribble, one shot (start to release), ball flight (ideal velocity to the basket is 28 feet per second). Adding those three things up and I am taking 3 seconds off of the clock. I am happy you agree.

If the throw-in team gets the rebound and you stop the play at this point and only take .5 seconds off for this touch deduction you talk about, you are essentially giving them a do over.

I KNOW that after a dribble, shot, and ball flight time that more than 0.5 seconds came off the clock or whatever subjective amount touch deduction means (this touch deduction you agreed to). Coaches know it too. So you go ahead and do a small deduction for the touch. I will do my best to get it right with what I know.

Edit - I went back to post 22 and you are NOT agreeing with taking a small deduction off for a touch. Sorry about that part.

Should any of this be in blue to indicate sarcasm? This seems pretty iffy, and I'd have a hard time defending it to a supervisor.

First of all lets get it straight that someone should have had a count. No one knows that we didn't except the three of us. If I am the supervisor and 3 of my officials where in this situation I would be more upset if they stood around looking like they don't know what to do before telling a coach that they THINK 3 seconds came off the clock so we will resume play with 2 seconds remaining. Things I would critique them on are how they handled the situation during and after the ruling. I would tell the coach that 3 seconds DID come off the clock and play will resume at the POI. In this case after the shot.

A referee's duty is to correct obvious timing errors. I am brave enough to offer my solution with nothing but grief in return. Maybe we can keep sitting around and argue about what is not in the rule book. What would you do?

You can't go to the locker room and use your cell phone to ask your assignor what to do. If you are the referee in this case, step up and make the correction. What do you do?

Easy, sparky. First of all, this doesn't happen in my game as the R because I go to the table in any short time remaining situation and tell them to make sure they wait until the chop to start the clock. This ensures they're paying attention to the time. Second of all, if I don't have a count I'm certainly not going with some "1 high dribble = 1.2 seconds, 1 quick dribble = .75 seconds." If none of us had a count, I'm getting the coaches together and telling them we have no definitive knowledge so we're going to the last known time. After this discussion, I emailed my supervisor and asked him what he could support in this situation. I'll let you know what he says but I'm 100% certain I'm not getting post season games if I try to use some whacky formula for ascertaining the amount of elapsed time.

Feel free to use the whacky dribble/shot timeline, but if I'm on that crew, you're going on my blocked partners list because that is not something I could get behind when trying to explain to a coach or supervisor.