The Nickel City’s first professional sports team, the Sudbury Five, play their very first home game at Sudbury Arena tonight. The team is part of the National Basketball League of Canada, a fledgling outfit less than a decade old, and one distinct from its more well-known cousin, the NBA.
The NBL was born in 2011 with seven teams. It has since grown to 10 teams playing in two divisions: the Atlantic Division (consisting of the Cape Breton Highlanders, Halifax Hurricanes, Island Storm, Moncton Magic and Saint John Riptide); and the Central Division (consisting of the Kitchener-Waterloo Titans, London Lightning, St. John’s Edge, Sudbury Five and Windsor Express).
So how exactly does the NBL differ from the NBA? We asked sportswriter Nick Liard to lay it out for us.
The National Basketball League of Canada plays a game closer to the European game (FIBA) than the NBA, although they are not far off from the rules you might see during a Toronto Raptors game on TV.
Some rules are the same as the NBA and then there are rules the NBL of Canada has put its own spin on.
Reading up on them, it looks like the league encourages personality and allows players to express themselves in a professional manner, where the NBA has taken a more strict approach with any reaction.
Main rules that are similar to the NBA
Four-12 minute quarters with a five minute overtime.
There will be a 24-second shot clock. If the ball hits the rim and the team that just shot gets the rebound, the shot clock is reset to 24 seconds. In FIBA, it is reset to 14 seconds.
If a technical foul is called there will be one free throw and then play resumes out of bounds close to where the play stopped.
A player fouls out with six fouls unlike FIBA where it is five.
Other rules
Most of the other rules used by the league follow FIBA regulations.
Some major ones are:
There will be five total time outs, two in the first half and three in the second half per team. There is also one media timeout per quarter.
A major rule that is different from the NBA is goaltending.
NBL uses the FIBA version where once the ball hits the rim, any player may play the ball. The ball may be bouncing above the rim or rolling on the rim and it is a legal play to touch the ball. There is no imaginary cylinder above the rim in NBL play, as there in in the NBA, where you would normally see an interference call on that type of play.
However, in the NBL, a player may not touch the rim or the backboard while the ball is on the rim.
Seven team fouls mean two free throws, the count resets each quarter and team fouls carry over from the fourth quarter to the OT period.
Playoffs
At the end of the regular season, two groups of four teams each will advance to the playoffs. One group will consist of the Ontario, Newfoundland and Labrador teams, while the other group will consist of teams from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.
The first round with be a best of five series while the next two rounds will be a best of seven.
Nick Liard covers the Sudbury Wolves and the Sudbury Five for Sudbury.com, provides game commentary for the Wolves on Eastlink, and serves as news director at 92.7 Rock and Kiss 105.3.
