In the NBA’s official rulebook, a request for a timeout by a player in the game or the head coach is granted only when the ball is dead or in control of a player on the team making the request. A request at any other time shall be ignored.
The rulebook does not, however, specify how exactly that request is made. For the most part, calling timeouts is a mundane gesture for a head coach in the NBA.
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“Just timeout,” Phoenix Suns head coach Monty Williams told The Athletic of his go-to way of calling a timeout as he put his straightened fingertips into the center of his other palm. “I don’t really think that deeply about it. I just try to call a timeout and move on. I don’t have any method behind it at all.”
“I don’t put any drama to it,” said Frank Vogel, who coached the Los Angeles Lakers the last three seasons. “If it’s time to take a timeout, I just take one. I don’t put anything extra into it.”
For other head coaches, they have a preferred method for calling timeouts. Most vary between using their hands or using their fingers.
“Straight out, hands above my head, straight out on the court,” Toronto Raptors head coach Nick Nurse said. “Keep walking until somebody sees me.”
“Just step on the court, and point to the official,” Chicago Bulls head coach Billy Donovan said. “That’s all I do.”
Of course, bringing up how coaches call timeouts can feel like breaking social norms in some ways. It can make some coaches think about gestures they use on the court but perhaps would not use in general.
“It’s a weird question, because I’m like trying to … I think it’s like, I point at the ref, and just yell timeout,” Milwaukee Bucks head coach Mike Budenholzer said. “Try to get one of them’s attention. I — hopefully it’s not rude — hopefully I’m not like … it’s not good to point at people. I think I point at the ref and then scream timeout, or holler timeout.”
Some head coaches try to keep their timeout requests relatively muted, but also with a courtesy towards the officials involved.
“I’m pretty quiet,” Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said. “I just step into the line of the trail official, and I just give a brief timeout signal down near my waist. I’m not a demonstrative, like, run-out-on-the-court guy. So, I just try to … unless it’s at the other end of the court, and I’m trying to get their attention. But for the most part, I’m pretty quiet.”
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“I’ll probably walk out there, simultaneously, and just kind of the old-fashioned signal,” Utah Jazz head coach Quin Snyder said. “You try to get an official’s attention quickly, so you don’t get ran over, and they appreciate that, too.”
Being in the way can be a hazard for head coaches, as well. LA Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue is among several head coaches known for putting an arm out and walking onto the court. But there have been some instances where referees have nearly run Lue over. It’s something Lue’s mentor, Philadelphia 76ers head coach Doc Rivers, has witnessed firsthand.
“I know, I saw that, yeah,” Rivers said when asked about Lue’s near-crashes with referees. “Which would have been a tech, you know? And you remember the one with Woody (former NBA head coach Mike Woodson), where Jason Kidd ran into Woody, who was on my staff. So, we always laugh about that. You got to do it strategically, obviously.”
“Most time, referees know the momentum of a game,” Lue told The Athletic. “When it gets out of hand or when you’re on the road and somebody gets a dunk and the crowd’s going crazy, they look back at you.”
Lue spent six of his 11 seasons as an assistant coach with Rivers, starting with the Boston Celtics and continuing with the Clippers. Among the many things Lue attributes to Rivers is how he got to his go-to timeout move.
“Probably Doc,” Lue told The Athletic when asked how he came to walking on the court to request timeouts. “Probably where I got it from. … Most time often, I’d be pissed off when (I) call a timeout, too.”
“I don’t know where I developed that from,” Rivers said about his timeout requests. “Honestly, I do it because I want the ref to see you. You know, I’ve had some (situations) when you’re calling a timeout, they don’t see you. The action happens, and that possession turns into a big possession. You know, I know in the Finals one time, I ran all the way to half court, which should have been a tech. But we needed the damn timeout! And so, I just can’t take the chance that no one sees you. I feel like if I’m standing in the middle of the floor, they actually have to call something, and that’s usually a timeout.”
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Basketball as a game of runs is a common cliché to describe the flow of the action, but it is very relevant to NBA head coaches when it comes time to consider a timeout. Being in a loud arena influences the timing of the decision even more.
“You know that when you’re on the road, you’re probably going to call them a little bit quicker than you would at home,” New York Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau said. “You tend to play through things more. And a lot depends on your team, too. Veteran team, young team, you can see when you need to get a timeout. So you know you’re going to use them to keep the game tight.”
“It kind of depends — official’s looking at you, I’ll just point,” said Washington Wizards head coach Wes Unseld Jr., who mentioned that his late father of the same name would be “very visual” with his sideline demeanor. “Sometimes, just got to get out there. If it’s loud and they don’t hear you, you got to be a little more demonstrative. But I don’t have a signature move or anything when it comes to timeouts. It’s just, when you need one, you got to burn one and slow the run or stop the bleeding. So, got to find a way to get their attention.”
“There’s times when you have to exert yourself, because officials are locked in the game,” added Snyder. “They feel those situations, too. When someone looks over at me and says, ‘Do you want a timeout?’ where it’s a little easier.”
There have been times this year where Lue has wanted a timeout and didn’t get it, to varying results. In a road game against the Atlanta Hawks in March, the Clippers trailed by four points with 36.2 seconds left. The Clippers took too long to get a shot off for a 2-for-1 scoring opportunity while down by two possessions and ultimately lost the game.
“I didn’t get a chance to get a timeout,” Lue said after the Atlanta game. “I wanted a timeout, but the official didn’t look at me, and we got the ball inbounds. So, it was too late.”
But sometimes that hesitancy when requesting a timeout or the gesture being momentarily ignored has its benefits, as Lue saw earlier this season on the road against the Minnesota Timberwolves in November. Minnesota center Karl-Anthony Towns stole an inbounds pass from Clippers point guard Reggie Jackson that was intended for center Ivica Zubac, and Towns returned it for a breakaway dunk, giving Minnesota a 70-68 lead. Lue was about to call a timeout, which would have been the first for either team in the second half. But the Clippers quickly answered Towns’ dunk by getting the ball down the court to forward Nicolas Batum, who hit a 3 in front of Lue and the Clippers bench.
Batum’s 3 triggered a go-ahead 9-0 Clippers run that wasn’t ended until Minnesota called a timeout to stop the game, 86 seconds after Towns’ dunk. The Clippers never trailed again, and perhaps Lue not getting a timeout in an understandable spot to take one provided a key mainspring for the change in momentum.
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“You can see like the momentum of the game,” Lue said. “Wide-open 3, you’re about to call a timeout. They miss it, so you’re mad about that. But yeah.”
“Sometimes, the way the game is today, you got to be careful with the runs because of the 3,” Thibodeau said. “A bad minute could be 12 points. So I think using your timeouts to kill those runs is important.”
There are two mandatory timeouts in each period. If no team takes a timeout before the 6:59 mark of a quarter, then it is taken upon the first dead ball and charged to the home team. If no subsequent timeouts are taken before the 2:59 mark of a quarter, then the other team is charged the other mandatory timeout at the next dead ball. For nationally televised games, the mandatory timeouts last 3:15. For all other local games, the mandatory timeouts last 2:45. All other timeouts last for 1:15.
“Looking at the mandatories, and generally try to use my mandatory around that time, just so we can get possession,” Donovan told The Athletic about his timeout usage. “Try to draw something up in a timeout. Kind of reorganize the guys, do that.”
Naturally, it can be quite hectic when a coach needs a timeout (and actually gets one). For a coach who is already standing in the middle of the court by time the whistle blows and the timeout clock starts counting down, realizing that everyone involved needs to chill is how most timeouts have to begin.
“There are some timeouts where I kind of just let them take a break, you know?” said Houston Rockets head coach Stephen Silas, bench boss of one of the youngest teams in the NBA. “How many times in an NBA game do you just get a chance to just sit and take a break? And I think there are times where guys don’t need to hear like, every timeout, someone like pounding on the board, ‘We got to do this, we got to do that.’ Or, ‘We got to make this adjustment.’ Sometimes, we need to breathe. Just need a breath. And I learned that from Don Nelson. He used to do that all the time.”
“Just let them come to the bench and just kind of calm down,” Lue describes the initial period of a timeout. “Try to just slow them down, because probably, a team’s been on a run, went on a run. So like the first 30 seconds, 45 seconds, let them come in, talk amongst each other. You know, calm them down. And you come in with your message. You know, things we got to be better at, things we got to clean up. And then you draw up your play.”
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Rivers praises Lue for the fact Lue retained a book of every after-timeout play (ATO) that Rivers ever ran.
“I wish he didn’t have that book now, since we play against him,” Rivers says. “He actually ran two against us the last time that worked, which really pissed me off. But he’s just got a great brain.”
A key difference in basketball compared to other sports is that there aren’t as many opportunities to stop the game and get a team together. It’s something that Rivers notes throughout a game.
“What we’ve learned is, it’s like football: You don’t get a lot of chances to have a huddle,” Rivers said. “You know, in football, every play they get a chance to have a huddle. And they execute. Well, we look at timeouts and side out of bounds and baseline out of bounds like football huddles. And that’s what I told Ty, and that’s what he does, that’s what I do. That’s what Monty does. Those are scoring opportunities. You got to take advantage of them.”
Needless to say, to get to those ATOs, you have to call the timeout. And there are so many ways to do it, even if coaches don’t realize how they actually call them.
“I don’t know, I step on the court, give them a little signal,” Lue said. “But for the most part, I call timeouts a lot of different ways. I don’t know. Just call it, just take it.”
(Photo of Tyronn Lue and Doc Rivers: Jim Poorten / NBAE via Getty Images)
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