NBA Changing Instant Replay Rules

The NBA announced Thursday night that its Board of Governors approved an additional “trigger” for instant replay review, in addition to five tweaks to existing replay rules.

Three other rule changes – regarding too many players on the court, substitutions during timeouts, and the resetting of the shot clock – are going into effect Friday night.

From the press release:

Officials may utilize instant replay whenever they are not reasonably certain a team had an improper number of players on the court while the ball was in play.

 

Instant replay triggers that are currently in effect only during the last two minutes of regulation and the entire overtime period(s) instead shall be in effect only during the last two minutes of regulation and the last two minutes of overtime period(s).

 

Officials may now conduct an instant replay review whenever they are not reasonably certain as to which team should be awarded possession after a ball becomes out of bounds or whether an out of bounds in fact occurred during the last two minutes of regulation and the last two minutes of overtime period(s). Previously, officials could only use replay if they weren’t reasonably certain as to which of two players on opposing teams caused the ball to become out of bounds.