The NBA will examine the impact of shortening a regulation game from 48 to 44 minutes on Sunday when the Brooklyn Nets play host to Boston in a pre-season exhibition game.
League officials want to examine the flow of a game that utilises four 11-minute quarters instead of the standard four 12-minute quarters.
"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.
"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 analyse game-time lengths."
A reduced number of timeouts will be available in the second and fourth quarters, with each quarter including two mandatory timeouts, the first at the first stoppage of play inside of seven minutes remaining in the quarter and the next with the first stoppage inside of three minutes, both coming if neither team has taken a timeout before the first mandatory one.
The current NBA game features three mandatory timeouts in the second and fourth quarters.
"I thought it was a unique experiment that was worth participating in," Nets coach Lionel Hollins said. "I'm looking forward to gauging its impact on the flow of the game. It will be interesting to see how it plays into substitution patterns."
Celtics coach Brad Stevens noted the NBA's history of changes, including shot clock time changes and 3-point arcs.
"I appreciate the NBA's long history of forward thinking and willingness to try new ideas," Stevens said. "We told the NBA that we'd be happy to participate in this trial during a pre-season game. I look forward to experiencing it and continuing the dialogue."
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