Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011 at 10:00 am  |  21 responses

The NBA Wants Games to End More Quickly

The L is looking to cut down on delays caused by breaks in action so that NBA games don’t take as long as they currently do. From the Tribune: “According to a memo distributed courtside Tuesday night at the Detroit Pistons game before they played the Rockets, the length of games has been increasing, ‘largely due to prolonged delays after breaks.’ NBA spokesman Tim Frank confirmed to The Associated Press that the protocol went into effect Tuesday night. The memos, some of which varied slightly from team to team, outlined new procedures for locally telecast games, including warning horns to be sounded shortly before the ends of timeouts and breaks between periods. Those warning horns are to be followed by final horns ending those breaks, and referees are directed to make sure huddles break promptly.”

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  • http://www.slamonline.com Eboy

    This would be a great idea if executed correctly.

  • Timothy Pete

    um how bout less commercials or less halftime thats the borin stuff i mean they cant juss stop callin fouls and other plays because they want the game to go quicker.

  • http://gmail dirty frank

    Who doesn’t? Sounds like a good plan to shave some time off.

  • floe

    they need to limit timeouts in the last 2 minutes of games.

  • First & Foremost

    Have Dwight shoot less free throws. Don’t call as many 3 second violations resulting in a 2 minute break to shoot 1 free throw. Stop reviewing every shot that kind of looks like he could have stepped on the line, pay attention more. Since when was a 20 second timeout as long as 5 infomercials.

  • tv timeouts

    hey, how about all of those tv timeouts? or when the referee sends one team to shoot 40 free throws in a game, like in last night’s lakers/hawks blowout?

  • tom

    just take away half the timeouts :)

  • Eric

    It’s a step in the right direction. I agree to anything that can decrease the long nba breaks. Too many timeouts, too much dancing, too much so called “entertainment” : Tshirts throwing, jumping hairy mascots, average Joe from the audience shooting air balls from 3… A NBA game is not supposed to look like a trip to Disney Land. Hopefully shortening the breaks will bring more intensity and bring back the focus on the game.
    Tom is right : reducing the qty of time outs would the best… But unfortunately I doubt this will happen. They need those timeouts to play repetitive and stupid TV adds so TV networks can get their $.

  • D12FSU

    how about no more official time outs, each team has 7 TO’s to work with, is that not enough?

  • http://nobulljive.com/ Enigmatic

    Less commercials. Less TV timeouts. Personally, I DVR my games cause they’re on while I’m at work, so thankfully I can fast forward all the extra crap.

  • unrel

    how many of us have actually complained that games are too long because of all the suggestions that have been made?.. come on now, fellas..

  • http://klatschendom.wordpress.com/ speedy

    Just shorten the Timeouts to one minute and the half to 15 minutes and everything will be fine.
    …wait… there goes the money for commercials.

  • Turk

    the “L” is great the way it is, if anything, reduce /tv timeouts

  • dimo

    reduce the timeouts, halftime, and the whole free throw shooting process. all that just takes away the intensity and the focus from the game.

  • Zabba

    Less timeouts, problem solved.

  • http://thetroyblog.com Teddy-the-Bear

    For some reason I actually like the longer game lengths… Halftime is a little long but that gives you time to catch some food in between. Maybe cut some TV timeouts out, but we all know the NBA won’t do that.

  • http://www.twitter.com/dfrance21 dfrance21

    How about shortening the season? 70 games, 1st and 2nd round are 5 game series. And stop spacing out each series by showing every game on TV.

  • http://www.garrettelliott.com Garrett

    How about they stop making teams inbound the ball with .3 seconds left in a blowout when the other team holds the ball or turns it over at the end of the game? Just let the clock run out and let the guys get off the floor.

  • http://www.twitter.com/dfrance21 dfrance21

    Would “End Quicker” have been bad english?

  • http://www.garrettelliott.com Garrett

    Also, they need to get a person in a booth reviewing slow-mo replays who can communicate to the refs on the floor through earpieces. They shouldn’t stop play and make players stand around while they review a monitor on the scorer’s table. Have the guy replay the footage and tell the refs what happened a second after it took place and speed everything up.

  • Megadada

    Just keep the breaks with cheerleaders dancing and skip anything else. There’s enough adds in each corner of our screen and slow motions actions to sell loads of food and electronic devices…

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