NBA going with shorter games for Disney exhibition openers

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (AP) — The first exhibition games of the NBA restart will go a little more quickly than usual.

The NBA is tweaking the rules for those initial matchups, going with 10-minute quarters instead of the usual 12 minutes. The change is for several reasons — among them, not wanting to overly tax players’ bodies after they went more than four months without games, and because some teams do not have their full rosters at Walt Disney World yet because of coronavirus and other issues.

“This is a different situation,” Dallas coach Rick Carlisle said Saturday. “In all areas, really. ... I do think that there’s some latitude to do some different things.”

Exhibitions start with a four-game slate 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 call for all 33 exhibitions to be televised by 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 first games, even whether to give 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 of their exhibitions -- the new jerseys featuring social justice messaging will not debut until the seeding games that count begin July 30.

Other changes for the exhibition games may include using more than three referees in a rotating system, though that also remains under discussion.

Players apparently had not been told the first exhibitions will go faster.

“I don’t know about that yet,” said Oklahoma City guard Chris Paul, the president of the National Basketball Players Association. “So, I’ll find out.”

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