The NBA’s cut on timeouts will alter coaching strategy around the league

Over the last few years, the NBA has searched for ways to speed up the game. This latest one is the most significant of them all.

The NBA’s Board of Governors voted to reduce the maximum number of timeouts allowed per game for teams from 18 to 14, per a press release from the NBA.

In addition, during the last three minutes of a game, teams will be limited to two team timeouts each instead of the previous rule that allowed three per team in the last two minutes.

Rather than having full and 20-second timeouts, all timeouts will be 75 seconds. The league also cut timeouts available in overtime periods from three to two.

Goodbye to the under-nine minute timeout in the second and fourth quarters. Hello to more flow at the end of games — we hope.

There has been a problem with game length over the last few years, with some games extending to be nearly three hours long. But this new trim on time may have a substantial impact on the way teams around the league manage the game.

Here’s how.

Minute management just became a lot more difficult. Coaches have built-in systems where they plug and play different players while managing the minutes of their starters. But with two fewer timeouts, coaches will have to make difficult decisions on how they substitute their starters and how long they can stay out of the game.

Coaches can still rely on dead balls to make substitutions. But let’s say one team goes on a 10-2 run without its star player on the floor over the last two minutes of the half. Calling a timeout to stop the bleeding late in the quarter costs a team much more with fewer timeouts at their disposal.

Obviously, timeouts still exist and there will still be two mandatory stoppages of play in each quarter. But after-timeout plays are important late in games, and the league is removing one opportunity for great coaches to draw up masterpieces.

Thanks to Brad Stevens, the Celtics were one of the best after-timeout play teams in the league last season. With just two timeouts with under three minutes left in the game now, one of those possessions is gone. That means two or three points could potentially be lost here, and that’s a big deal in a close game.

Using strategy to preserve timeouts for late in games will be key for coaches like Stevens. We might see weird timeouts with 3:30 or 3:15 left on the clock in the fourth quarter, just to get an extra possession to score. They’ll find a way around it, but it’s still something they’ll have to maneuver.

As we said before, the loss of two timeouts means fewer opportunities to get starters and reserves in and out of the game. Some coaches may adjust by simply playing their starters for a couple of minutes longer than they normally would have.

Coaches like Tom Thibodeau and Scott Brooks had trouble with depth last season, and leaving their star players out of the game for long stretches of time resulted in tight losses. But with even less opportunity to plug them back in due to the removal of the under-nine minute timeout, the easier strategy may be to just play someone like John Wall or Karl Anthony-Towns for even longer stretches.

That’s a dangerous game to play over the long haul, but it may be something we see moving forward that helps coaches win games.

The benefits of this rule change are clear in a vacuum. The game will be faster because of it. At the same time, it’ll force coaches to alter their strategies and might eliminate different elements of the game.

Each coach must adjust accordingly. It’ll be interesting to see how they do it.