Wally Szczerbiak Timeout Error Costs Sonics the Game

It's one of those things that you always tell your players, know the game, score and clock situation. This includes things like how many timeouts you have, whether you can run the baseline, whether you're in bonus. With 15 seconds left in the game and the Sonics down by 1 to the Suns, Sonics forward Wally Szczerbiak tried to call timeout when he could not inbounds the ball without knowing that the Sonics did not have any timeouts left to call. Here is what it looked like live (with sound),



Having just come out of the timeout huddle, Wally should've known better that the Sonics did not have anymore timeouts left. We all remember Chris Webber committing the same error in the 1993 NCAA Championship game while at Michigan.

But it wasn't all Wally's fault. Part of the blame should go to Wally's teammates and the coaching staff for not clearly communicating the timeout situation and also not having a safety option for the inbounds to ensure the ball gets inbounded safely. It's one of those situations where no question is a dumb question, and where it's clearly better to over-communicate than to assume anything. As they say, when you assume, you make an ass out of u and me.

For a video that has a bunch of BLOB and SLOB plays, take a look at The Best of the Best Inbounds Plays from Winning Hoops. It contains over 70 plays for you to choose from. Don't forget to check out the X's and O's of Basketball Forum to talk about this and your favorite basketball topics.