Possession (sports) determined by several methods, including a coin flip (American football and cricket), home team status (baseball), or by giving the teams an equal opportunity to physically take possession; this may be called a dropped-ball (association football), a ball-up (Australian rules football), a jump ball (basketball), or a face-off (hockey). In some timed sports, the team with possession may try to "run time off the clock" by keeping the ball and not attempting to score, in order to deny the opposing team possession. A shot clock speeds gameplay by requiring teams to attempt to score within a certain period of time
Running out the clock kick to a contest, creating the chance for a turnover. In basketball game clock stops when the ball is dead and runs when it is live. Running out the clock was a major problem in the early days of the NBA. Often, once a team grabbed the lead, they would spend the remainder of the game just passing the ball back and forth, in what was called stall ball. The only hope for the other team was to commit fouls and to score on free throws. The worst example was a 1950 game with a final score of 19-18. Another