Question from my state's fan site...

[Adam]

Originally Posted by bainsey

I appreciate the thoughts thus far.

I can't see you can possibly continue the game with 21 seconds. While you don't have definite knowledge of the exact time that elapsed, you do have definite knowledge that SOME time should have gone off the clock, particularly after three passes. It can't be zero seconds.

You can consider any backcourt or closely guarded counts in your estimate, or find other ways to find a good number, but zero can't be it, and if you went with zero, you have to charge the team with a technical foul.

You may not need exact knowledge, but you need to have some definite "at least this much" knowledge. Chances are, in this situation, you've at least had 1 second of a 5 second count, but if you haven't, then you can't take any time off by rule. Now, nothing says you have to have a 5 second count to be counting.

Otherwise, if you say "why not just take one second off", others will say "Well, I know it was at least 5 seconds". I'm not much for slippery slope arguments, but it seems the rule is the way it is for a reason.