"Countdown" allowed or not?

[Mark Padgett]

Had this the other night. Right before the end of the first quarter, the home team had the ball and they were up a few points. It's was obvious they were holding for the last shot of the quarter. This gym has only one scoreboard on the wall and it was "behind" them. When the clock got down to five seconds, the home book keeper at the table started yelling the seconds left really loud, apparently to help his team.

At the half, I told him he couldn't do that as he was part of the officiating crew and had to remain neutral. He apologized and that was that.

We had almost the same game situation near the end of the second quarter and I looked over at the guy. He looked back at me and smiled, then gave the "zip your lip" gesture while nodding his head. The clock went off and we both chuckled.

Would any of your guys done anything different? I didn't want to "punish" the team by blowing the whistle and stopping the clock when he did it, I thought just letting it go and then admonishing him was the best way to handle it.