
Tyronn Lue believes Cleveland Cavaliers affected by NBA's timeout changes
In early July, the league's Board of Governors unanimously approved recommendations by the NBA competition committee in an attempt to speed up the game. Along with standardizing the length of halftime intermission and cutting back on players wandering away from the free-throw line in between shots, the league dropped the number of timeouts from 18 to 14, eliminating a pair from each coach.
All timeouts are now 75 seconds in length, rather than "full" timeouts that lasted 100 seconds and those "20-second" timeouts that really ran much longer. In another tiny change, each quarter has two mandatory timeouts, as the old rule mandated a third timeout in the second and fourth quarters.
"Timeouts are different because you have to save timeouts now with them taking away two and it's different," Lue said.
In the past, Lue would use timeouts as strategic mini-breaks, allowing him to steal rest for his key players without having to yank them out of games. If LeBron James got tired, he signaled to Lue and the coach called for a stoppage. This led to James sometimes playing the entire second half or being able to stay effective despite a high-minute load. Other times, Kyrie Irving would be able to stay in for the entire first quarter before resting to start the second.
It's much more difficult now, something that became obvious during Sunday's loss against the New York Knicks.

