Hoops Factoid

It is possible for the shot clock to have more time on it than the game clock.

How can this possibly happen you might wonder.

It is because of the way the software for the shot clock is designed to work. When the shot clock starts counting down, it doesn't start counting at 24.0 seconds. It actually starts counting at 24.9 seconds. So when the shot clock changes from 24 to 23, that means the shot clock has counted down from 24.9 and has changed to 23.9.

This also means that when the shot clock shows 1 second left, there can be anywhere from 1.9 seconds to 1.0 seconds left. This approach allows the shot clock to go off and sound the horn as it turns from 1.0 to zero, having counted down 24 seconds from 24.9 to .9 . So there could be 1.7 seconds showing on the shot clock, .9 seconds left in the game and there still could still be a shot clock violation if a shot is not off before there are .2 seconds left in the game.

If it was not done this way, you would have to have tenths of a seconds on the shot clock. Which could be better or worse, depending on your point of view.

Either way, at the end of any quarter in an NBA game, it is possible to have more time on the shot clock than on the game clock, with the shot clock still in effect. When you see this, it does not mean that there is a clock problem, it means the software is working as designed.