Bad Time for the Clock to Stop

[chymechowder]

Originally Posted by BillyMac

The timer mistakenly stops the clock shortly following the Team B goal; the game clock reads 4.0 seconds remaining. The official sounds the whistle, (a) immediately to address the timing mistake;

So would this be a mistake on the official's part? Say the home team scores with 8 seconds left and they trail by 1 with no timeouts left. The home team scorer (innocently) stops the clock anticipating a timeout, or (not so innocently) stops it just to stop it.

A good official's gonna look at the clock once the ball goes through. But if he sees it FREEZE at 8 seconds, should he wait a brief reasonable amount of time, say, 3 seconds, before starting his count? Then maybe when he gets to 4 blow the whistle to fix the clock?

It just seems odd that if you fix it right away, you are putting one team at a major disadvantage, and, worst case scenario, rewarding possible shenanigans.

I know the casebook says to ignore an intentional Delay of Game by a player who's just trying to get the clock stopped at the end of the game. Shouldn't we also then ignore a possible delay by the clock operator?