Nets vs Celtics Preseason Match Down to 44 Minutes, Says NBA

The Brooklyn Nets and Boston Celtics will not be faced with as much pressure to come up with an interesting game because their faceoff this coming weekend will be extraordinary on its own.

The bigwigs of NBA announced on Tuesday that the preseason match scheduled Sunday will be an experiment, allotting just 44 minutes instead of the usual 48, Reuters reported.

Aside from shortening the quarters to 11 minutes to spread out the four-minute deduction at the match in Barclays Center in Brooklyn on that day, mandatory timeouts will also be reduced, the Reuters said, basing on the league's statement on the matter.

There will be two mandatory timeouts for each quarter, whereas standard games get three on the second and fourth quarters, it added.

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

Thorn added: "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."

According to ESPN Go, the league management was acting on a suggestion by some coaches, thinking if the games were briefer, there would be lesser toll on the basketball players' health--the Plan B to the already shunned possibility of lesser games.

Nets head coach Lionel Hollins already approved the Sunday game modifications, telling Reuters: "When this idea came up at the coaches' meeting, I thought it was a unique experiment that was worth participating in... I'm looking forward to gauging its impact on the flow of the game."

He also said: "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," as quoted by ESPN Go.

"I appreciate the NBA's long history of forward-thinking and willingness to try new ideas... We told the NBA that we'd be happy to participate in this trial during a preseason game. I look forward to experiencing it and continuing the dialogue after Oct. 19," Celtics coach Brad Stevens said, meanwhile, as quoted by the same.

However, the coaches' agreement to the experiment does not mean they agree to the policy change.

Coach Erik Spoelstra of the Miami Heat thinks Plan A is still best, believing the real issue is the number of games, not the duration of each.

"I think there's too many games, to be frank. I think if there's some way to find a way to cut out some of the back-to-backs so there aren't 20-plus of them," he told ESPN Go.