Timing Issue - You Call It

[SMEngmann]

Just as a clarification on what happened. There was a play right in front of the scorer's table where the ball was awkwardly saved from going OOB. The scorekeeper, who was paid table crew, said that he inadvertantly hit the stop button thinking the ball was OOB and then immediately restarted once he recognized his error. He readily offered that he made that error and was apologetic and embarrassed, he is neither incompetent nor a cheat, he just made a very rare mistake at an inopportune time.

As a crew, we discussed the situation and definitively determined that the clock had stopped based on what the scorekeeper said. The decision was eventually made, based on a strict interpretation of the rules, to count the basket because we had no way of definitively knowing when exactly the clock stopped, and for how long it stopped, so we could not definitively say that the shot would not have counted. Needless to say, the visiting team was not happy, and it was a rough ending. Honestly, I don't think that there's anything wrong with what we did, and that it's justified by rule, but I think it was the easy way out for us, and I would like to see if anyone thinks there's any way to justify another ruling. One thing that was lucky for us was that this was not a contested shot at the end of the game to determine a winner. Some thoughts:

Apply rule 2-3 and disallow the basket on the basis that the home clock made and acknowledged the error and should not have the opportunity to benefit from the error? Inadvertant clock stoppages are not covered in the rules specifically, so according to this theory, the burden of fairness applies to the home team

Apply rule 2-3 and replay? I don't think this is an option because too much happened in the 8 plus seconds. Also, this adds the possibility of further penalizing home team if there's a quick steal, or fouls take place.

If there is a monitor present, do we try to determine elapsed time or replay from the time of the inadvertaint stoppage?

Just interested in some thoughts on if you think we could've better handled the situation and still been within the rules.