NBA League Officials Approve New Rules in Calling Timeouts for Better Game Flow
The National Basketball Association's Board of Governors has agreed to change the league's rules in calling timeouts to improve the flow of the game.
The NBA's new rule on calling timeouts — which was unanimously approved by its Board of Governors — will particularly address the pace of the last couple of minutes in every game.
The final two minutes, especially during close matches, have naturally become crucial points of many basketball games. Players or coaching teams typically call their remaining timeouts during the last couple of minutes hoping to fine-tune their court strategy and eventually win the game. As a result, the supposedly "last two minutes" normally take much longer.
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"We were more focused here on the pace and the flow of the game. What we heard from our fans and heard from many of our teams was that the ends of games in particular were too choppy. ... We think these new changes will have a significant impact, especially at the end of the game," NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said, according to NBA.com.
The changes, effective at the start of the 2017-18 season, will practically reduce the number of timeouts per game from 18 to 14 (7 per team) timeouts. The full and 20-second timeouts are going to be replaced with 75-second team timeouts.
Starting next season, teams will have two mandatory timeouts during all four periods that must occur "after the first stoppage under the seven- and three-minute marks." The NBA's new set of rules also scrapped the mandatory timeouts that are placed within the nine-minute mark of the second and fourth quarters.
As for the crucial final moments in the fourth quarter, the new rule says: "Each team will be limited to two team timeouts after the later of (i) the three-minute mark of the fourth period or (ii) the resumption of play after the second mandatory timeout of the fourth period."
During overtime periods, each team will now have only two team timeouts instead of three.
NBA officials have also become very specific about the halftime period and gave it only 15 minutes — including the intermission performance — that will start counting as soon as the second period is over. Free throw shooters will not be allowed to step beyond the three-point line between his attempts. Violation of the new halftime and free throw rules can cause a team a delay-of-game call from the referees.
