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I believe in 0.3

Wed Nov 11, 2009 (3:57PM ET) by poormanscommish in nba, referees, rules/regulations 

Brad Millers shot with 0.3 did not get off in time.

Brad Miller's shot with 0.3 did not get off in time.

Last night NBA referees negated Brad Miller’s potential buzzer-beating win in the Chicago Bulls’ one-point loss to the Denver Nuggets. You can see in the paused replay above that, in fact, he did not get the shot off in time when the clock showed zeros.

Here’s a rare situation where if it can happen in the NBA, it can never happen in Dream League. In Dream League, Brad Miller’s shot counts and everybody puts it in the Top Ten coolest basketball things they’ve ever participated in. We would’ve never known that the shot really shouldn’t have counted. This brings me back to a similar play in Dream League’s Open League many years ago when the NBA’s 0.3-second rule was first introduced.

I’m pretty sure it was Kato Pierce who made the game-winning shot with 0.3 left in our Dream League game. We were over at Potrero Hill Rec Center and Kato’s team was down by 1. The scoreboard at Potrero doesn’t show tenths of a second, but at the time, the scoreboard control panel was still capable of showing it (the box has since undergone various repairs, so who knows if it still displays as it did before).

So when the ball went out of bounds baseline and the game clock showed zeros although the buzzer hadn’t sounded, with me working the table, I told everyone that there were 0.3 seconds per the scoreboard panel display.

Kato’s team drew up a smart play. Basically they had the ball out of bounds baseline under the basket, to the left if you are facing the basket. It’s all kind of a blur, but the play had Kato somehow get open on the opposite baseline area, and he drained a fifteen-foot jumper to win the game.

That’s when I became convinced that the 0.3 rule was the correct rule.

There’s some debate by Henry Abbott on TrueHoop that it takes the same 0.3 seconds for a human being to react to a play, but let me tell you how you’re supposed to operate the scoreboard in this instance. Now, the official rule is that the clock starts once someone on the court (inbounds, of course) touches the ball after being inbounded. But as the scoreboard operator with only 0.3 left on the clock, you can’t wait for a player to touch it, then start the clock. You have to anticipate it. You watch the play, you watch the flight of the ball, and you time it to start right when the recipient of the pass gets the ball. I don’t think there’s any other way, literally on Earth, to do it.

This method is certainly prone to mistakes. The most common error is when a defender deflects the ball. If this happens, I can assure you that you will be at least 0.3 seconds off because, not only as Abbott’s “experts” purport, but also from personal experience, it takes at least that much time for you to react to the deflection.

Someday there will be a controversial play in the NBA in which there’s, let’s say, 0.4 seconds left, someone inbounds it, a defender deflects it (just a slight tip!), the clock does not start right at that moment because that is humanly impossible, and the inbounder’s teammate drains a shot before the red lights on the backboard flash.

Replay wouldn’t necessarily solve the problem because the clock wouldn’t have started until about 0.3 seconds after the deflection. So then the refs would have multiple issues to deal with in making their on-court decision in front of thousands of onlookers. Even if they take that into account, then you’ve got to mathematically estimate if the player still got the shot off in time, an impossible task for a ref. Therefore, the refs would then revert to the video (which is inaccurate in the first place because, again, the clock didn’t start on time) and they would declare the shot good when, in fact, there’s a chance that the shot really didn’t get off in time. The losing team would then file a protest and then-Commissioner Adam Silver would be faced with a difficult decision.

Yet a third error that could occur, assuming the scoreboard operator anticipates the reception of the ball inbounded, is on a free throw. The ball clangs off the rim and is essentially up for grabs. Maybe two players accidentally bump each other trying to reach for the ball and end up not touching it. The scoreboard operator actually starts the clock too early in this example.

I’ve done this before. In fact, it was another Open League game many years ago when Maurice Brown was at the line with less than 1 second remaining, probably somewhere between 0.6 and 0.9 seconds, down by two points. So everyone in the gym knew he was going to miss on purpose, which he did, but in anticipation of the miss, I accidentally started the clock right when the ball hit the rim! Good intentions, very bad result. So the buzzer sounded maybe 0.1 or 0.2 seconds after hitting the rim, everyone knew it shouldn’t have sounded until after when it did, but no one on Brown’s team rebounded it for a putback. Everyone played through the gaffe as if there were no buzzer, so that’s how we decided it. Had someone on Brown’s team rebounded it and made a putback, we probably would’ve counted it. From that day forward, I vowed never to screw up a free throw clock start with only a few ticks left on the clock.

Which brings us back to last night in Chicago. Remember, Miller had 0.3 seconds to shoot the ball only because, in the previous play, Chauncey Billups purposely missed a free throw with 0.6 seconds left. Incidentally, it could even be debated that the play before that ought to be analyzed to see if Billups actually got fouled with 0.6 remaining.

In any case, if you look at the replay of the free throw rebound, first of all you’ll see that the initial scoreboard operation had time expiring. In the scrum for the rebound, it’s really hard to tell when you should stop the clock. In fact, if you look at the replay, with 0.3 seconds left, the rebounder (I think it was Joakim Noah) is still in the air coming down from his jump! That suggests that there should have been less than 0.3 seconds remaining on the next play.

However, I’m in favor of the refs merely subtracting 0.3 seconds from 0.6 to give Chicago the timeout and the ensuing inbounds in the frontcourt. I don’t think a player necessarily has to land before he gets the timeout granted.

All in all, after closely analyzing the highlights and hitting the mouse button on my computer to pause and frame-by-frame advance the video as carefully as I could, I believe the clock was started and stopped, on those two plays (the Billups free throw and Miller’s shot), with near perfection. And by the way, it has been confirmed to me by not only the Warriors scoreboard operator, but also our NBA replacement refs, that in “crunch time” it’s actually one of the referees who starts the clock using a remote control device attached to their waist!

So in conclusion, since Dream League does not have instant replay, in Dream League Brad Miller’s shot counts and the Chicago Bulls win. I’m no longer convinced that Kato really got his 0.3-seconds-left shot in time years ago, either.

Not to mention, it’s very difficult to remind all Dream League refs that 0.3 is, indeed, the rule. Even for free throw rebounds, to automatically subtract that 0.3. Even though I tell my crews to text me on the spot if something weird, urgent, or game-changing comes up, often times they simply don’t. They either just decide that they can handle the situation themselves or they forget I’m available as a resource even if I’m not there.

Interestingly, the 0.3 rule kind of took away some excitement from the Chicago-Denver game, whereas in Dream League, the result would’ve been, oh, more “down to earth”. But I’m still a believer in 0.3 because it’s the right play. That’s why I’m a stickler for tenths-of-a-second on any of Dream League’s gym’s scoreboards. It’s a huge pet peeve of mine.

I also think that having the tenths-of-a-second display adds drama and excitement. Just seeing that hurried, fast-moving, unreadable-until-it-stops digit in the waning, crucial moments of your game, that automatically raises your blood pressure!

So to answer Abbott (as I often do, in disagreement!), if you’re going to have tenths-of-a-second on your clock, then you better go the whole nine yards with it.

Also, I would recommend that the NBA review all play starts and stops, in the fourth quarter and overtimes, of plays with 0.9 seconds remaining or less and the game within reach of one possession of either team. This means Billups’s foul should have been reviewed as far as the clock is concerned. We’re only talking ten to twenty advances of the video frame and in, quite frankly, very rare circumstances.

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