[Phantom Lord]

I think it's clearly the time keeper's fault: he was slow starting the clock.

As posted above in a photo, he was also slow in stopping the clock. Should have been .8 seconds left instead of .4.

He's an employee of the home team, no?

No. Time keepers are provided by the NBA according to a post above.

Also, if memory serves me right, and I believe it does, the "game clock" on scoreboards is not the "offical" game clock. That is seperate, and as pointed out above, activates the red light behind the hoop.

[sathers]

It is also possible that the clock was set at 0.0499 seconds, which would account for Fisher being able to jump up in the air mid catch and make the shot.

[RossA]

I just calibrated the frame-forward feature on my TIVO. It advances 1/30th of a second (one frame) with each click - in exact agreement with the specification. (You do this by Pausing then pressing Forward. I tried this on a program which showed a running time; the program's clock advanced exactly 1 second every 30 presses).

This implies Fisher had the ball in his hands for 1.8 seconds (55 frames). This renders the question of the time left (0.4 or 0.8 seconds) after Duncan's shot irrelevant.

If I were the time-keeper I would not return to Texas - ever.