A frequent criticism of the NBA is the constant stoppages at the end of close games.
Made basket. Timeout. Defensive rebound. Timeout. Can’t get the ball inbounds. Timeout.
Well, there are going to be fewer timeouts this season, as the league cut each team’s allotment from nine per game to seven. Just as interesting, NBA teams may call only two timeouts in the last three minutes of the fourth quarter, one fewer than before. They may have no more than four of those original seven timeouts to start the final 12 minutes.
While that is welcome news to fans and sportswriters on deadline, the endgame reduction is not what concerns Sixers coach Brett Brown.