Absolutely, without question, yes. Take off whatever time you have definite knowledge of and put the ball in play wherever it was when you blew the whistle.

In FIBA rules, keep re-setting the clock until the USSR wins.

I should've said this earlier. In deciding whether or not the offensive team is attacking the basket, you can use the same criteria as you would for deciding whether to stop play for an injured defensive player. You don't stop the play if the offense is attacking, but as soon as they pull back, or stop going to the basket, you kill it. Same thing with the situation we're discussing.

If they're not in the act of shooting, driving to the basket, or about to dump it inside for their buy guy, kill it and get the clock set correctly.

I'm with Chuck on this answer... stop and correct the situation

However, why would we be keeping back-court time if there is no possibility of a backcourt violation - less than 10 seconds on the clock? Personally, I don't do any arm-swinging if there are less than 10 seconds left in the game. And if I catch myself habitually swinging, I stop.

So if you did not have definite knowledge of elapsed time what would you do?

Blow the whistle, put the ball back in play where it was when you blew the whistle, and start at 10 seconds.

Adam

Just for this situation. Once I see that the clock has started, I stop swinging the arms, but I still keep the time in my head.

By the book, you would stop the game and make sure the timer starts it correctly the next time. You would resume play by putting the ball in play at the spot nearest to where it was when you blew the whistle, with no change to the clock.

In real life, you take your best, careful guess. Stop the game, take a couple seconds off the clock and put the ball in play at the closest spot to where it was when you blew the whistle.

If the ball is in the frontcourt when I spot the error, I would take 3 or 4 seconds off the clock, depending on the how fast the ballhandler brought it up. If the ball is still in the backcourt, I would take 2 seconds off the clock.

It's not by the book, but that's what I would do. I don't think you can say, "Sorry the clock guy messed up and gave the offense a few extra seconds; but I'm not going to do anything about it."

What I had in mind was a fast-moving play to get the ball downcourt ahead of the defense. Not necessarily a fast-break, maybe a passing play. But then I realized that the defense probably isn't going to be in the back court, so that shoots down my image. On the other hand, it bears thinking about. If the defense is pressing heavily, and A3 gets down court alone, and the ball is being passed quickly to them, even if it's not across the division line yet, I'm not going to take away that chance. I expect you'll agree with me on this one exception to your procedure.

I fully agree that the clock must be stopped. If not, you're going to have a real mess when you blow the whistle to end the game when A1 is waiting for 3 seconds to show on the clock before launching the play the coach just drew up in the timeout.

There are a few times I would either wait or not stop it at all.
<LI>A1 has an imminent scoring opportunity.
<LI>The score difference is more than a few...maybe 10 more than the time left in seconds.

I can't be the only one wondering why som44 is counting for the ten-second violation with only eight seconds remaining in the game at the time of the inbounds, can I?

no.

He's counting because he made it a habit a long time ago, so that if anything goes wrong with the clock, he'll have "positive knowledge" of what the time should be.

I was counting out of force of habit--wish i was smart enough to say it was in case of a problem but in truth just habit