The Nets will be guinea pigs next week as the NBA tests an experimental 44-minute game clock, the league announced yesterday.
Sunday’s preseason game against the Celtics at Barclays Center will feature 11-minute quarters.
“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,” said NBA president of basketball operations Rod Thorn in a statement released by the league.
Thorn added that the game, which will be four minutes shorter than usual, will provide the league with “some preliminary data that will help us to further analyze game-time lengths.”
The format also calls for two mandatory timeouts per quarter. These timeouts would trigger at the first dead ball under 6:59 of the quarter if neither team has taken a timeout yet and again at the first dead ball under 2:59 if neither team has taken a timeout after the first mandatory timeout.
Nets coach Lionel Hollins said he looks forward to trying out the shorter format.
“When this idea came up at the coaches’ meeting, I thought it was a unique experiment that was worth participating in,” Hollins said in the statement. “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.”
