NBA Preseason News: League To Experiment With 44-Minute Game in Sunday's Boston Celtics-Brooklyn Nets Matchup
The National Basketball Association announced on Tuesday that the upcoming match between the Boston Celtics and Brooklyn Nets on Sunday will just be a 44-minute match.
According to a statement released on their official website, the NBA decided to conduct the experiment to know the difference between a 44-minute game and the regular 48-minute match.
Rod Thorn, league president of basketball operations, said that coaches discussed during a recent meeting that the NBA should try to study whether or not reducing the length of the game and season will be beneficial to all parties.
"At our recent coaches' meeting, we had a discussion about the length of our games, and it was suggested that we consider experimenting with a shorter format," Thorn said. "After consulting with our Competition Committee, we agreed to allow the Nets and Celtics to play a 44-minute preseason game in order to give us some preliminary data that will help us to further analyze game-time lengths."
Instead of the regular 12-minute quarters, each period will be reduced to 11 minutes, while mandatory timeouts in the second and fourth period will be reduced from three to two.
Nets head coach Lionel Hollins said that he is excited to be a part of the unique experiment. Aside from a faster game flow, the first-year Nets coach is also curious to see how it will affect his rotation patterns.
"When this idea came up at the coaches' meeting, I thought it was a unique experiment that was worth participating in," Hollins said. "I'm looking forward to gauging its impact on the flow of the game. Since there is a shorter clock, it affects playing time, so it'll be interesting to see how it plays into substitution patterns."
Celtics coach Brad Stevens is also looking forward to the 44-minute match, saying that he is curious how the experiment will affect the talks about reducing the length of NBA games.
"I appreciate the NBA's long history of forward thinking and willingness to try new ideas," Stevens said. "We told the NBA that we'd be happy to participate in this trial during a preseason game. I look forward to experiencing it and continuing the dialogue after October 19."
Basketball Hall of Famer Reggie Miller took to Twitter to react on the experiment as he pointed out that the reduced playing time will be beneficial to a player's career.
"I'm digging the 44-min game experiment Oct 19th between Nets/Celtics. Less wear n tear on players bodies, quicker game time," Miller posted on Twitter.
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