LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. – The first exhibition games of the NBA restart will go a little faster than usual.
The NBA is adjusting the rules for those initial matches, going with 10-minute quarters instead of the usual 12 minutes. The change is due to several reasons, including not wanting to over-tax players’ bodies after more than four months without games, and because some teams still don’t have their full rosters at Walt Disney World due to coronaviruses and others. problems. .
“This is a different situation,” Dallas coach Rick Carlisle said Saturday. “In all areas, actually … I think there is some freedom to do different things.”
Exhibits begin with a four-game whiteboard on Wednesday and continue through July 28. Each team will play three exhibitions, and the last two for each club will have the traditional 12-minute quarters. Plans require that all 33 exhibits be televised on some combination of local TV, national TV, NBA TV, or NBA League Pass.
The league is still working on some of the specifics for the early games, including whether it gives teams the option of wearing uniforms or practice gear. Most teams, as of Saturday, were still planning to wear their usual regular-season uniforms for all three exhibits: The new social justice message shirts will not debut until the start games begin on July 30.
Other changes to exhibition games may include the use of more than three referees on a rotating system, although that also remains in dispute.
Apparently, players had not been told that the first exposures will be shorter.
“I still don’t know about that,” said Oklahoma City Guard Chris Paul, president of the National Association of Basketball Players. “Then I will find out.”
The exhibits will be played like normal games – scores and stats will be kept, and it will be an opportunity for league stat teams to be hired to work for three months at Disney to resolve any system issues.
Miami coach Erik Spoelstra said he has a different opinion than he does for typical preseason matchups. For the first time, he’s speaking with the coaches of teams the Heat will face, Luke Walton of Sacramento and Quin Snyder of Utah, to see if there are specific situations where those clubs want to work on those games.
Spoelstra simply bumped into Snyder in the lobby of a Disney hotel, and from there, the idea was born for one team to help another in exhibitions. The Heat and Jazz will not play in an opening game and could not meet in a game that counts at Disney until the NBA Finals.
“You have to speed up a lot before you get to that regular eight-game season … We’ll tackle it that way and we’ll probably play as many as are available, but we’ll definitely work on a few things and evaluate a little bit. Well,” Spoelstra said.
The displays will be helpful in breaking the monotony of practice, Denver coach Michael Malone said, but emphasized that the player’s health will come before anything else in those games.
“The most important thing for me is that we can overcome these three scrimmages in a healthy way and not get the boys to put themselves in a position where they work too hard, play too many minutes and get hurt,” Malone said. “I think the vast majority of the 22 teams will approach it the same way.”
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