Last Second shot

[davidw]

Last night, boys varsity, score 40 to 40, time left .6 sec., visitor ball in backcourt at intersection of baseline and sideline. After a time-out, ball is put in play, full court pass to B2 in front of me at lead in front court near free-throw line extended. A2 in the air, intercepts pass and as returning to court heaves one handed shot to his basket approx. 70 ft. away. Horn sounds after shot has left his hand, I track ball and see it on-line with hoop, NOTHING BUT NET. I am official opposite table and signal basket good. My two partners both mirror as we were in a very wide triangle and they, I assume, wanted to not only let me know they agreed it was off in time but to let all gym occupants know we were in agreement.

After we exited gym, all three of us are shaking our heads in disbelief at what we witnessed. Obviously, the home fans erupted in a cacophony of noise and excitement. The game was hard fought the entire 32 min. and never more than 4 points seperated the two teams. One of those games we revel in. We were on, the teams were on, the fans were on and it was all capped off by the unexpected and thrilling finish.

As we were basking in the emotions still churning, in comes a well respected, high ranking fellow official from our association. His first words. "That is phyically impossible." I'm thinking he is meaning this figuratively and say something like: "I know, can you believe it?"

He says: "It's impossible for a player to catch a pass return to the floor and heave a shot in .6 sec.!" He referenced the ruling regarding .3 sec. and the necessity of tapping a ball in that time frame in order to have a chance of being legal.

One of my partners asked him, if he, under the circumstances, would have waved off the shot, gone over to the official timer and told him 'he blew it' and did not start the clock in time because it is physically impossible to do what he did in that amount of time. Our guest official, did not respond to that and we discussed other aspects. I went back to the question and said: "I want to go back to "partner's" question, would you have waved it off?" Would you have done it any differently?" He never did answer, he danced around it. Saying something about we should have pregamed the situation. Obviously, we did pregame last sec. responsibilities, etc.

My question(s), do you think it was possible for the scenario to all take place in .6 sec.? (I'm not entirely sure B2 came completely down before beginning his shooting motion, as I recall it seems he began bringing his arm back while in the air after having intercepted the pass and was bringing it forward as he came to the floor and fired off his shot. But there is no doubt from the 3 officials on the floor that the shot left his hand before the buzzer went off.) Do you have an opinion on our guest officials sharing his opinion in the manner he did?

David Weathers

[Edited by davidw on Dec 21st, 2004 at 10:55 PM]

[bob jenkins]

Originally posted by davidw
My question(s), do you think it was possible for the scenario to all take place in .06 sec.? (I'm not entirely sure B2 came completely down before beginning his shooting motion, as I recall it seems he began bringing his arm back while in the air after having intercepted the pass and was bringing it forward as he came to the floor and fired off his shot. But there is no doubt from the 3 officials on the floor that the shot left his hand before the buzzer went off.) Do you have an opinion on our guest officials sharing his opinion in the manner he did?

David Weathers

It's impossible (by rule) to do what you desctibed on .06 seconds.

Now, if you meant .6 seconds, that's another story.

[davidw]

Thank you Mr. Moderator, that's what we pay you the big bucks for: to catch those kind of things! Thank you, yes it was 6 tenths of a second (.6 seconds). My oops!

I've gone back to the orig. post and edited/corrected those time references.


[Edited by davidw on Dec 21st, 2004 at 02:03 PM]

[zebraman]

Like Bob, I've never heard of clock that displays hundredths. But assuming that your clock displays tenths (which is what I think you meant), I think it's very possible that the shot was caught and launched in a half-of-a-second.

I question the official who questioned your judgement.

The only thing I might add is that in those situations, I ALWAYS go to the timer and tell them to watch my chop (or the other official if they are the "chopper") to make sure that the clock is started on time. You may have done that.

Z

[davidw]

My other question I forgot to ask was if there are any of you who might agree, that that was impossible, would you have waved it off, etc.?

[gostars]

Originally posted by zebraman
Like Bob, I've never heard of clock that displays hundredths.

I have seen many clocks that display hundredths when it's stopped and tenths when it is running.

The only problem with that is when I tell the timer to put :14.00 on the clock they ally put 14:00.00 up and you can't tell what they did until the clock starts.

[ChuckElias]

A similar situation happened a year or two ago in the NBA playoffs. I think it was a Charlotte Hornets game, for some reason. Anyway, game was tied with 0.7 seconds remaining in the 4th quarter. Officials huddled, as usual. When play resumes, ball is inbounded in the frontcourt. A1 catches the ball outside the 3-point arc with his back to the basket. He squares to the basket, fakes a jumper, then takes the jumper. Ball is away before the LEDs and, of course, SWISH!

Officials wave off the basket and play OT, where Team A wins the game (I think).

There were obviously replays that showed the ball clearly out of A1's hand when the LEDs went on. So why was the shot waved off? In their huddle, the officials decided that 0.7 was long enough to catch, turn and shoot, but that anything else (like, say, a pump-fake) would not be possible.

I never did find out if that was an NBA guideline, or if they just agreed on the court so that they would be unanimous about counting it or not.

[davidw]

Originally posted by ChuckElias
A similar situation happened a year or two ago in the NBA playoffs. I think it was a Charlotte Hornets game, for some reason. Anyway, game was tied with 0.7 seconds remaining in the 4th quarter. Officials huddled, as usual. When play resumes, ball is inbounded in the frontcourt. A1 catches the ball outside the 3-point arc with his back to the basket. He squares to the basket, fakes a jumper, then takes the jumper. Ball is away before the LEDs and, of course, SWISH!

Officials wave off the basket and play OT, where Team A wins the game (I think).

There were obviously replays that showed the ball clearly out of A1's hand when the LEDs went on. So why was the shot waved off? In their huddle, the officials decided that 0.7 was long enough to catch, turn and shoot, but that anything else (like, say, a pump-fake) would not be possible.

I never did find out if that was an NBA guideline, or if they just agreed on the court so that they would be unanimous about counting it or not.

Interesting, Chuck. Thanks for the reference. I'm going to see if I can find out more info. on that situation as I may use that in discussion with our fellow official and his stated position of "That's impossible..." etc.

[JugglingReferee]

As long as no official saw that the clock started incorrectly, and the covering official judged that the shot left the shooters hand before the buzzer went, I say you gotta count it.

Great game, great officiating.

[devdog69]

Originally posted by zebraman
Like Bob, I've never heard of clock that displays hundredths. But assuming that your clock displays tenths (which is what I think you meant), I think it's very possible that the shot was caught and launched in a half-of-a-second.

I question the official who questioned your judgement.

The only thing I might add is that in those situations, I ALWAYS go to the timer and tell them to watch my chop (or the other official if they are the "chopper") to make sure that the clock is started on time. You may have done that.

Z

I think you need to do this, talk to the clock operator in such an important situation. There is no way to 'fix' a bad clock start in an important situation so preventative officiating should try hard to make sure it's done right. Also, there should have been one official designated to make sure the clock starts correctly, probably the one most likely to be the farthest away from a shot attempt.

[davidw]

Originally posted by devdog69
[/B]

I think you need to do this, talk to the clock operator in such an important situation. There is no way to 'fix' a bad clock start in an important situation so preventative officiating should try hard to make sure it's done right. Also, there should have been one official designated to make sure the clock starts correctly, probably the one most likely to be the farthest away from a shot attempt. [/B][/QUOTE]

I was new lead official, 80 ft. away from inbounding ball. One moment ball is being thrown towards one teams basket and a fraction of a sec. later it is going 75 ft. the other way.

We did discuss the inbounding official (who happened to be the R this night)forgot to visit with the timer regarding the chop in (which he pointed out he USUALLY does) Center official conceded since he was closest to bench he should have covered that. I admit,though being the farthest from play, still had a responsibility to intercede when recognizing this important oversight was occuring. What is interesting was we did come together and discussed several issues regarding the approaching play beforehand. Goes to show, you can't ever be TOO thorough.

What's also interesting, we had felt like we had a great game, which I really believe we did, until our guest brought up his opinion on the last sec. shot.

[rainmaker]

Sheez, if there's any elbow room at all, I'm giving the shooter the benefit of the doubt. Great play like that deserves reward.

[DownTownTonyBrown]

David, personally, I would say there is no way you could wave it off.

You have two pieces of timing guidance:

A shot attempt cannot be made (must be a tap) with less than 0.3 seconds. This plainly is not your case. You have more than 0.3 seconds - a try may be attempted.

The timer's ability to turn the clock on and off allows for a 1 second delay. Yes, you want them to do it correctly but you don't have any evidence that they did it incorrectly.

The play must stand. And it was an incredible shot, why would anyone even consider taking it away?

One hotdog's statement that it would be impossible to catch and toss within 0.6 (which could have been 0.69 seconds) has absolutely no bearing. He has no factual evidence. No empirical knowledge. Nothing but a hunch. Given that the officiating team doesn't feel the clock was started improperly (late), there is nothing within the rules that would allow you to wave off such a shot.

I would say, it was HIGHLY POSSIBLE. In fact, the kid just did it!

[rainmaker]

Oh, and by the way, david, welcome back! I've been wondering where you've been. Thought you might have ruptured a tendon or something. Merry Christmas!

[davidw]

Originally posted by rainmaker
Oh, and by the way, david, welcome back! I've been wondering where you've been. Thought you might have ruptured a tendon or something. Merry Christmas!

Thanks, Juulie.

Actually, through the fall I'm very busy with my business. Then I had a stent inserted in a coronary artery follwed two months later by open heart (by-pass surgery) on the 6th of Oct. All went well, in fact, the doctors gave me the ok to go back to officiating a month early--as you can see.

Anyway, I was a little distracted recently. But it is good to be back. Thanks again.

Oh, yes! And a very Merry Christmas to you--one and all.