The Lakers beat the Grizzlies 123-120 on Saturday night in a game that was a tight battle throughout but saw L.A. eke out a win to keep their hopes alive of the 8-seed in the West (and thus two cracks at a Play-In win to make the playoffs).
However, rather than being a 48 minute battle, it was maybe the first NBA game in history to play 49:06 of regulation. That’s because of a clock reset error in the third quarter that put an extra 1:06 on the game clock after a Grizzlies shot clock violation, as the game clock reset from 1:14 to 2:20, with no one in the arena seeming not notice.
Just realized the Lakers and Grizzlies played 13:06 minutes in the 3rd quarter last night. When the shot clock was supposed to be reset at 1:14, the game clock was also accidentally reset to 2:20. No one noticed and they played the rest of the way with the new game clock. pic.twitter.com/oeEE0F7f3C
— Ramiro Bentes (@NbaInRstats) April 13, 2024
I went back and rewatched the end of the third quarter to figure out what happened, and it seems that it was confusion from the clock operator. Memphis had committed a shot clock violation with 2:20 left on the game clock prior to the one they committed with 1:14 to go in the quarter. So, when they reset the clocks, they must’ve either been on autopilot and done the same thing they’d done just over a minute ago or hit a pre-populated reset button that still had 2:20 on the game clock from the previous reset. The result was an extra minute of play, and in that time, the Lakers got a bit of an advantage. In the final 1:06 of the quarter (which shouldn’t have been played), L.A. got two buckets to Memphis’ one, turning a 1-point deficit into a 1-point lead.
Source: https://uproxx.com/dimemag/lakers-grizzlies-clock-error-reset-third-quarter-extra-time-video/
