Well, there was an exciting finish to an NBA playoff game last night that was painful to watch.
Here’s the recap of real time versus the ‘action’ in the final 66 seconds of game time:
elapsed time .. game clock .. description of what happened
00 m 00 sec .. 1:06.0 - Booker called for an offensive foul when the guy he hit enhanced his reaction. They go to the monitor, the call was not changed, Clippers ball
02 m 48 sec .. 1:06.0 - Clippers inbound down by 3, foul on Booker 10 secs later, 2 FTs made by George
04 m 12 sec .. 0:56.7 - Suns inbound up 1, layup blocked 19 seconds later, George scores 6 secs after that
04 m 39 sec .. 0:30.9 - Suns call timeout down by 1
06 m 24 sec .. 0:30.9 - Suns inbound and Booker scores in 3 seconds, Clippers call timeout down by 1
08 m 23 sec .. 0:27.0 - Clippers inbound and George scores in 5 seconds, Suns inbound no timeout
08 m 45 sec .. 0:09.3 - Ball knocked out of Booker’s hand, go to monitor, call switched since it was on his fingertip for a nanosecond later than on the hand of the guy who swiped at it (nobody would ever make that call live), Clippers call last timeout
13 m 13 sec .. 0:09.3 - Clippers inbound, George fouled 1 second later, misses both FTs, Suns call last TO
16 m 20 sec .. 0:07.8 - Suns inbound down 1, nobody has a timeout, they miss and rebound goes out of bounds
16 m 27 sec .. 0:00.9 - Go to monitor to see who gets ball, call stays with the Suns, free TO in last sec
19 m 26 sec .. 0.00.9 - Pass at rim to Ayton who dunks it, ball was above rim when he got it, clock to 0.0, go to monitor. Van Grundy immediately says there’s no goaltending (or offensive interference) on an inbounds pass, and that the basket will count. Refs eventually rule that and say the play only took two tenths of a second. Van Grundy also points out during this review that with no timeouts the Clippers will have to throw the ball the length of the floor, and that they can’t susbstitute. They had in two rim protectors that didn’t get it done and who normally wouldn’t be on the floor for a last-second heave. It took a while to get the right people on the floor.
27 m 42 sec .. 0:00.7 - Long pass to George, who tries a catch and shoot, but it’s off the rim and it looked late anyway.
So it took 27:42 to play the last 66 seconds, with 4 timeouts and 3 monitor reviews, the last two of which gave a team down a point a free timeout.
It took 11 minutes and 15 seconds to play the final 9 tenths of a second when neither team had a timeout!
That should have been a great game, but the actual time involved for a few seconds was ludicrous.