Blood and Timeout

[Back In The Saddle]

Interesting question indeed.

The blood rule is not a playing rule -- a violation or foul that should be called -- it's a safety rule. And if the unsafe situation ceases to exist before you can address it...why would you pursue it?

[mbyron]

Originally Posted by Back In The Saddle

Interesting question indeed.

The blood rule is not a playing rule -- a violation or foul that should be called -- it's a safety rule. And if the unsafe situation ceases to exist before you can address it...why would you pursue it?

That was my thinking.

The blood rule requires us to stop play to address the situation. But here play is already stopped.

The time-out requirement is designed to speed up the game: in general since we have stopped play for safety reasons, we're either going to have the team use a time-out or resume play immediately. But here we didn't stop play for safety reasons, and play will resume no faster if we assess a time-out.

The time-out provision of the rule is not intended as a punishment, and it doesn't seem reasonable or fair to impose a punishment by assessing a time-out.

[BktBallRef]

Was the player directed to leave the game? No.

A player who is not directed to leave the game is still in the game.

Therefore, we don't care what happens during the timeout.

[Nevadaref]

Originally Posted by BktBallRef

Was the player directed to leave the game? No.

A player who is not directed to leave the game is still in the game.

Therefore, we don't care what happens during the timeout.

Correct.

[sseltser]

Thanks, all. This ruling makes the most sense, but I know that just because something makes sense or seems right, doesn't mean it is. Glad that we don't need to overthink this situation.