Jazz Now About Out of Time : NBA playoffs: Error by timekeeper adds 10 seconds to the game, but Rockets escape with an 80-78 victory.

If you thought only God could make a miracle, welcome to the NBA.

The globe did not stop spinning, the mountains didn’t slide into the seas, but time stood still in the Delta Center Sunday when the Utah Jazz’s clock operator gave the home team 10 extra seconds to try to tie the score at the end of the game.

Fortunately, the Jazz didn’t score in their extended possession or they might have required the commissioner, top NBC executives and the National Guard to sort things out. The Houston Rockets won, 80-78, and took a 3-1 lead in the Western finals.

“It was a long 13 seconds, I know that,” said Utah’s Tom Chambers, who missed his team’s last shot. “We were just talking in the shower that it seemed like a long 13 seconds.”

Maybe they should make him the new timekeeper.

The last play was supposed to take 13.5 seconds. Replays showed it took 24.

It started when John Stockton, who had just hit a three-pointer, drew an offensive foul on the ensuing inbounds play against the Rockets’ Sam Cassell.

Jazz Coach Jerry Sloan set up his blue plate special, a pick-and-roll with Karl Malone, but then things got weird.

The Jazz threw the ball in . . . but the clock didn’t start.

The operator was Wayne Hicken, who has held the post since the Jazz arrived in 1979 and who also works University of Utah games. Timekeepers have been accused of shaving a second or two but rarely 10 of them. Hicken either had delusions of grandeur, hit the wrong button, missed the right button or, most likely, just forgot.

“The only reason he started the clock,” a Jazz official said, “was the scorekeeper yelled at him, ‘Start the damn clock!’ ”

“I got caught up in the game,” Hicken told the Associated Press.

Meanwhile, back on the floor . . .

The Jazz ran their pick-and-roll. Jeff Hornacek dropped the ball off to Malone, but “The Mailman” was 15 feet out and covered. He swung the ball to Jay Humphries, spotted up at the three-point line on the other side of the floor. Humphries started to shoot but changed it to a pass to Chambers on the baseline.

Chambers tried to turn into the lane but lost control of the ball on the way up and wound up batting it at the basket.

“I had a nice little five-footer,” Chambers said, “and they fouled the . . . out of me, to put it bluntly.”

The rebound rolled into the far corner. Houston’s Robert Horry dove on it and several players dove on him. Horry managed to get the ball out of the pile, the Rockets got it to the other end of the floor, dribbled it a few seconds and, finally, the buzzer sounded.

Meanwhile, on the Rockets bench. . . .

“I was watching it right from the start,” Rocket Coach Rudy Tomjanovich said. “I couldn’t believe it. I’m looking up there thinking, ‘Maybe that’s not the real clock. Maybe that one on top of the basket is just stuck.’

“I was in shock.”

The Rockets led throughout the game as Kenny Smith, who had 27 points in Game 1 and only 10 shots in Games 2 and 3 combined, scored 25.

This was fortunate for the Rockets, since the Jazz’ bumper-car defense had pushed Hakeem Olajuwon out of the lane. Reduced to shooting jump shots, Olajuwon missed 12 of his 18 and scored 16 points.

The Rockets led, 75-68, with 3:58 left, when they got careless.

They turned the ball over six times in the last 3:41. Some were nice plays by the defense and some were mistakes, as when Vernon Maxwell tried a two-on-one break that missed with 30 seconds left and Houston leading, 79-74, rather than pull the ball out.

“I can’t express the terrible feeling I have,” Tomjanovich said. “We work on those things.”

With 13.5 seconds left, Stockton hit a three-pointer, cutting it to 80-78, then drew the foul on Cassell. What happened next was the stuff of legend.

Tomjanovich was asked if he had ever gotten an explanation from the referees.

“No,” he said. “I just got out of Dodge, happy to get a W.”