NBA修改新赛季排名规则

秦毅忠 译

　　NEW YORK (Reuters) — The NBA adopted a rule change on Wednesday that ensures that teams with the best regular season records in each conference will not meet in the playoffs1 before the conference finals.

　　{2}The Board of Governors also agreed to increasing the roster size for the playoffs and shortening time outs.

　　{3}“Our owners are intent on making the playoff seeding more fair for all teams going forward and in quickening the pace of the end of games,” said NBA executive vice president for basketball operations Stu Jackson.

　　{4} The top four seeds in each conference will continue to be given to the three division winners and the team with the next best regular season record.

　　{5}However, the four teams will now be seeded in order of their regular season records, ensuring that the two teams with the best records will not meet earlier than the conference finals.

　　{6}The roster size for the playoffs has been raised to 15 from 13, with each team designating 12 active players and up to three inactive players prior to each game.

　　{7}“The Board thought it made sense to allow teams to utilize the same 15-man roster in the playoffs that they use during the regular season,” said Jackson.

　　{8}If a team has two 60-second timeouts left in the last two minutes of regulation or in overtime, one of the two timeouts will be shortened to a 20-second timeout.

　　{9}In addition, teams will have two 60-second and one 20-second timeout in overtime instead of having three 60-second timeouts.

(2006－2007学年第2期)