Buzzer beater

For the Japanese manga, see Buzzer Beater (manga).

In basketball, a buzzer beater is a shot taken before the game clock of a quarter expires but does not go in the basket until after the clock expires and the buzzer sounds. The term is normally reserved for baskets that beat an end-of-quarter buzzer but is sometimes referred to shots that beat the shot clock buzzer. If a player releases the ball before the buzzer sounds, the shot still counts if it goes in even though the clock expires before the ball goes through the hoop.

Officials in the National Collegiate Athletic Association, National Basketball Association, Women's National Basketball Association, Serie A (Italy), and the Euroleague (Final Four series only, effective 2006) are required to use instant replay to assess whether a shot made at the end of a period was in fact released before the game clock expired. Since 2002, the NBA also has mandated LED light strips along the edges of the backboard and the edge of the scorer's table for the purposes of identifying the end of a period.

Notable buzzer beaters

Although buzzer beaters are fairly common, several instances have been recognized as special occasions:

NCAA

NBA Playoffs

Olympics and Europe

In other sports

The term is sometimes applied to analogous achievements in other sports.

Ice hockey

In ice hockey, like in basketball, a buzzer beater is a goal that is scored just as the clock expires in a period. Unlike in basketball, however, the puck must completely cross the goal line with 0.1 seconds or more remaining on the clock in order for the goal to count; if the period expires before the puck completely crosses the goal line, the goal is disallowed and the green light boots up.

Football

In gridiron football, a last-minute field goal (or, much more rarely, a successful fair catch kick) kicked as time expires can be described as a "buzzer beater," though no actual buzzers are used in that sport and a quarter or half ends upon completion of a play unless a compliant defensive penalty occurs, which gives the offense one final play, an instance that led to the Green Bay Packers' 2015 "Miracle in Motown" play against the Detroit Lions. Several important games have been decided on the outcome of buzzer beaters, such as Super Bowl XXXVI and Super Bowl XXXVIII, both of which were decided on successful kicks by Adam Vinatieri; in contrast, Scott Norwood's infamous missed kick in Super Bowl XXV decided that game in favor of the opposing New York Giants. A related concept in football is the Hail Mary pass.

The concept is applicable to other football codes as well; a goal can be scored in either rugby football code, Gaelic football or Australian rules football in the closing seconds to win a game. The concept is less common in soccer; the end of the game is not officially signaled by the expiration of the clock, but by declaration of the official, who almost always adds "stoppage time" to account for time lost to stoppage of play during the game.

References

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