page_title: Shot clock
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Shot clock / History / Background
caption_attribution_description: George Mikan(99) and Jack Allen (21) of DePaul University and Carl Meinhold (23), Elmer Benyak (27) of Long Island University during basketball game at Madison Square Garden, New York
context_page_description: A shot clock is used in basketball to quicken the pace of the game. The shot clock times a play and provides that a team on offense that does not promptly try to score points loses possession of the ball. It is distinct from the game clock, which times the entire game. The shot clock may be referred to by its initial value. For example, in the National Basketball Association, it may be called the "24-second clock".
  A shot clock is also used in snooker, men's lacrosse, water polo, korfball, and ten-pin bowling. It is analogous with the play clock used in American and Canadian football, and the pitch clock used in baseball.
context_section_description: The NBA had problems attracting fans (and positive media coverage) before the shot clock's inception. Teams in the lead were running out the clock, passing the ball incessantly. The trailing team could do nothing but commit fouls to recover possession following the free throw. Frequent low-scoring games with many fouls bored fans. The most extreme case occurred on November 22, 1950, when the Fort Wayne Pistons defeated the Minneapolis Lakers by a record-low score of 19–18, including 3–1 in the fourth quarter. The Pistons held the ball for minutes at a time without shooting (they attempted 13 shots for the game) to limit the impact of the Lakers' dominant George Mikan.  It led the St. Paul Dispatch to write, "[The Pistons] gave pro basketball a great black eye." NBA President Maurice Podoloff said, "In our game, with the number of stars we have, we of necessity run up big scores." A few weeks after the Pistons/Lakers game, the Rochester Royals and Indianapolis Olympians played a six-overtime game with only one shot in each overtime: in each overtime period, the team that had the ball first held it for the entirety of the period before attempting a last-second shot.  The NBA tried several rule changes in the early 1950s to speed up the game and reduce fouls before eventually adopting the shot clock.
caption: Stall tactics to limit big man George Mikan (#99) led to the shot clock's creation by the NBA.
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