The Boston Celtics and Brooklyn Nets played an experimental 44-minute preseason game on Sunday that featured 11-minute quarters and fewer mandatory timeouts. Aided by a breezy 19-minute first quarter, the game -- a 95-90 triumph by Boston -- finished in less than two hours, about 19 minutes faster than the league's standard 48-minute regular-season game.

Celtics coach Brad Stevens said he noticed the change midway through the quarters while preparing to sub -- and had to remind himself that, say, six minutes on the clock meant only five minutes elapsed instead of the usual six -- and it certainly chomped into the total number of minutes available for reserves. But Stevens suggested the most noticeable aspect may have been the improved flow of the game with one less mandatory timeout in both the second and fourth quarters.

How did Sunday's game compare to Boston's typical contest this exhibition season? Here's a closer look with times from the NBA's official gamebooks:

Ironically, Sunday's experimental game was no faster than Thursday's 48-minute game in Philadelphia. But it was still 12 minutes faster than the team's six-game average entering the tilt. Stevens has noted how, over the course of an 82-game season, that time saved would certainly add up for teams. He also pointed out how four fewer minutes per game essentially equates to 6.8 total games trimmed over the course of an 82-game schedule.

"You noticed it a little bit when you were subbing at the start of quarters, but I thought the flow with one less [timeout] was actually a little bit better in the second and fourth [quarters]," Stevens said after Sunday's game. "I didn't notice it other than that. When I am subbing and I'm looking at the clock and it's seven or six [minutes] on the clock, and I have to get myself back on that only five minutes has gone on if it says six on the clock. That is a little bit different, but I had it mapped out, so I kind of knew what I was going to do. I didn't notice it a whole lot, and I don't know how much impact it had on the game."

Reaction around the league to the Celtics-Nets experiment suggests that many would rather either (1) shorten the number of games in the exhibition and regular season or (2) simply spread the games out more, potentially trimming the exhibition season to aid that.

If nothing else, the league should investigate the impact of one fewer mandatory timeout in the even quarters as that could address the issue of flow without impacting the sanctity of the 48-minute game.

The players involved in Sunday's experiment suggested the effects were not particularly noticeable on the floor.

"When you are playing, you don't really think about it too much," Celtics forward Jeff Green said. "I didn't feel a difference at all."

The clock did mess with Jared Sullinger a bit.

"I looked up, I'm so used to seeing 12, so I looked up and saw it was like 5-something left on the clock," he said. "I was like, man, normally I come out around the 7-minute mark. And they were like, 'It's an 11-minute [quarter].' Then I was like, 'Oh, that explains everything.' So, it was kind of weird, four minutes less. I'm just happy we won."

[Additional reading: C's + Nets play 44-minute game]