subject: How Basketball Is Played [print this page] Basketball is played between two teams of five players each, with a leather ball blown up with air, and 30 inches around, on a court 94 feet long and 50 feet wide. (It does not absolutely have to be this large, and many courts are quite a bit smaller.) Along the sides of the court are the side lines, and at each end there is an end line. There must be a space of at least three feet running all around the outside of these lines, and when the ball goes off the court into the outside space, it is said to be out of hounds. The baskets, two hoops, are attached ten feet above the floor. Behind them are backboards which are six feet wide and four feet high. Sometimes the backboards are made of wood, and sometimes they are made of heavy plate glass so that the people sitting behind them can see the game through them. There is one basket at each end of the court. When the game is about to start, each team lines up with two men at one end of the court, two men at the other, and the fifth player in a circle in the very center of the court. To start the game, the referee tosses the ball straight up in the air between the two players in the circle, and blows his whistle. The players, called centers, jump up as high as they can and each tries to tap the ball toward a member of his own team. At the same time the timekeeper starts to time the game with a stop watch. A regulation game consists of four 10-minute quarters with a 15- minute intermission between the second and third quarters. In high-school basketball they play 8-minute quarters, and in professional basketball, 12-minute quarters. timekeeper is kept busy, for there are numerous "time outs" called, usually to give the players a chance to rest for a minute or to get advice from the coach. When a "time out" is called, the timekeeper stops his stopwatch. He starts it again when play begins again. When ten minutes have gone by,on the stopwatch, the quarter is over. Basketball is really a simple game. Each team tries to keep the other team from dropping the ball in its own basket, and at the same time tries to drop the ball into the other team's basket. A player is not allowed to run with the ball, but may dribble, which means that he must bounce the ball against the floor with one hand as he runs. He may pass the ball to a member of his own team. A player may not hug the ball to his body, but must hold it in his hands. Only the ball is supposed to be touched. When two players each have both of their hands on the ball so that neither one has to give up, there is jump ball at that point on the court, like the one at the start of the game (and at the start of the third quartet.) This is called a held-ball. When the ball goes out of bounds, it is given to the player who last touched it, and he throws it back on the court. It is thrown back in at the point at which it went out of bounds. There are two kinds of fouls in basketball, and they are very important. A personal foul occurs when a player charges, trips, holds, or is rough with another player. A technical foul occurs when a rule is broken. When a player makes a foul, a player on the other team receives one or two free throws, or sometimes a throw-in from out of bounds. In making a free throw, the player stands on the free-throw line, which is 15 feet from the basket. He is allowed to throw for the basket, and the other team may not in any way interfere. His team scores 1 point for every free throw that goes into the basket. The score is 2 points for every basket that is made from the field. When a team has scored, the other team puts the ball back into play by a throw-in from behind the other team's end line. At the end of the game, the team that has the most points is the winner, in case of a tie, a short overtime period is played, usually about 2 minutes.
