NBA To Experiment With A 44-Minute Preseason Game
NEW YORK (AP) — The Brooklyn Nets and Boston Celtics will play a 44-minute preseason game on Sunday as the NBA experiments with a shorter game.
The contest will be four minutes shorter than thee NBA's standard 48-minute game. The league says Monday that the teams will play four 11-minute quarters, one minute shorter than normal.
There also will be only two mandatory timeouts per quarter. There are three mandatory timeouts in the second and fourth quarters of the 48-minute game.
The average length of an NBA game is about 2 hours, 15 minutes, according to USA Today.
"We have looked at everything that we do and are taking a fresh look at all the different things we do," NBA president of basketball operations Rod Thorn said, according to USA Today. "One of the things that keeps coming up is our schedule and the length of our games. … Our coaches talked about it, and a lot of them seemed to be in favor of at least taking a look at it. We talked with our competition committee, and they were in favor of taking a look at it."
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