NBA to experiment with 44-minute Celtics preseason game

The NBA announced today that the October 19th Celtics-Nets preseason game will be four-minutes shorter than the standard NBA game.

Application of the experimental 44-minute game will involve quarters being reduced from their typical 12 minutes each to 11 and a reduction in mandatory timeouts in the second and fourth quarters. During this 44-minute game, each quarter will feature two mandatory timeouts per quarter, with the first triggered at the first dead ball under 6:59 of the period if neither team has taken a timeout prior, and the second mandatory timeout will be triggered by the first dead ball under 2:59 if neither team has taken a timeout subsequent to the first mandatory timeout. In the NBA’s 48-minute game, the second and fourth quarters have three mandatory timeouts.

The standard, regulation NBA game runs about two-and-a-half hours, which I think is pretty good.  Fans spend the better part of an hour watching the action… they get to take an intermission… and then there’s another hour or so of action and that’s it.  I like that flow.  The flow is good.

A nationally televised game is a different story.  Timeouts are longer, and there are more of them.  A nationally televised game can run about 15 minutes longer than normal, which is a noticeable difference.  THAT’S where regular fans tend to have a problem.

If the NBA wants to look into how its time outs are used, I’m all for it.  Limit the number of timeouts at the end of games. Limit the crazy amount of substitutions that are allowed (it drives me nuts when one coach subs someone in, and the other coach says “oh crap” and pulls a guy quickly off the bench to match up.  If you’re not at the table ready to check-in, you’re not in the game).  The last two minutes of close games can be an incessant, mind-numbing parade of stoppages.  Let the guys figure it out on the court.

But don’t eliminate actual game play.  If there’s anything that’s going to piss off the consumer, it’s eliminating actual basketball in favor of keeping commercials in these national games.  We’re not paying all this money for tickets, concessions, or League Pass to see less basketball… even if it is just a minute a quarter.  We’re not paying for special sports cable packages because we want more ads for crappy lite beers.

This experiment is fine as a one-off thing.  But rest assured that if the determination is less basketball is the way to go to shorten games, there will be a backlash.