NBA to experiment with shorter 44-minute game

[October 15, 2014]  (Reuters) - The Brooklyn Nets and Boston Celtics will experiment with a 44-minute preseason game on Sunday, four minutes shorter than a standard game, the NBA said on Tuesday.

The teams will play four 11-minutes quarters at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, one minute shorter than the normal, while mandatory timeouts will be reduced, the NBA said in a statement.

"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," NBA president of basketball operations Rod Thorn said in a statement.

"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."

During Sunday's game, there will be two mandatory timeouts per quarter. In a typical 48-minute NBA game, the second and fourth quarters have three mandatory timeouts.

"When this idea came up at the coaches’ meeting, I thought it was a unique experiment that was worth participating in," said Nets head coach Lionel Hollins.

"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."

(Reporting by Simon Evans in Miami; Editing by Frank Pingue)

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