Adding some small degree of excitement to what would have been a dull, mundane preseason game at the Barclays Center, the league conducted an experiment with the Celtics and Nets playing 11-minute quarters on Sunday. In addition to the one fewer minute per quarter, there were two media timeouts in the second and fourth quarters instead of the normal three. The shorter 44-minute long game, the first one in NBA history, ended in a pleasant one hour and 58 minutes with the Celtics
If it were possible to detect a belly laugh from the hereafter, I’m sure there would have been something bordering on a thunderclap last week when the NBA announced Sunday’s Brooklyn-Boston preseason game would be 44 minutes instead of 48. On second thought, it might have been closer to a booming “WTF?” Wilt Chamberlain has been dead for 15 years, but I can guarantee the mere suggestion of reducing the length of games still irritates him. “Forty-four minutes,” Wilt would bellow. “You
The NBA has been considering, or at least entertaining the idea of finding ways for the regular season to be shorter in some way to help prevent its valuable players from being too worn out. So in Sunday’s upcoming preseason contest between the Boston Celtics and Brooklyn Nets, the league will try out a 44-minute game for the first time ever just as a simple sample to evaluate. Here are the details, from ESPN: The contest will be four minutes shorter than