The CBA follows the same basketball rules as does the NBA and most other professional leagues. However, in the late 1970s CBA commissioner Jim Drucker added several new rules to increase scoring and raise fan interest.
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During each game, a team can win up to seven standings points - three points for winning the game, and one point for each quarter in which they outscore their opponent. The teams with the greatest number of standings points at the end of the year go to the playoffs.
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Beginning with the 2005-2006 season, the six teams with the highest quarter points qualified for the playoffs. The first round of playoffs featured each team participating in a three-game round-robin tournament, with the final two teams achieving the highest quarter point totals advancing to a best-of-three series.
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A player cannot foul out of the game - after a player's sixth personal foul, the opposing team receives an automatic free throw.
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During the 1982-83 and 1983-84 seasons, overtime games were decided by the team who scored the first three points in overtime. During the 1984-85 season, that rule was modified so that victory went to the first team to LEAD by three points in overtime. By the 1987-88 season, that rule was superseded by a standard five-minute overtime period to determine the winner.
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During the 1981-82 season, the CBA created a six-foot by five-foot "no call box", an area in front of the baskets in which any contact in the box between offensive and defensive players was to be an automatic defensive foul. This rule, which was designed to encourage drives to the hoop, caused more confusion than scoring, and the rule was quickly abandoned. However, a variant of this rule would be adopted by the NBA in 2002.
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For a few years in the early 1980's, the CBA offered a money-back guarantee, returning a patron's money if before the start of the second quarter, the fan left the game. There was also a "national season ticket," allowing fans to attend any CBA games within a 100-mile radius of his hometown.
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Other CBA rules and innovations that were later adopted by the NBA include the three-point line (first used in the CBA in 1964), collapsible rims to keep backboard glass from being destroyed in a dunk (first used by the CBA in 1980), and the offering of three foul shots if a player is fouled in the act of shooting a three-point behind-the-arc play.
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Drucker also created a series of high-profile, big-money promotions that attracted increased attendance and league sponsorhips and substantial media interest. From 1984-86, "The 1 Million Dollar CBA Supershot" offered a $1,000,000 cash prize for a fan selected at random at halftime who made a 3/4 court shot. Although no fan won that one, in 1986 one fan did win a $1,000,000 zero coupon bond. The winner, Don Mattingly (no relation to the New York Yankee player with the same name), won the bond in the "CBA Easy Street Shootout" at the 1986 CBA All-Star Game in Tampa. Other promotions included the "Ton of Money Free Throw" which consisted of 2,000 pounds of pennies ($5,000) for making one foul shot, and "The Fly-In, Drive-Away" Contest where each fan received a paper airplane with a distinct serial number. At halftime, a new car, with the sun-roof opened, was driven to mid-court and the fan who threw his airplane into the sun roof won the car. A new Ford Thunderbird was won by a fan at the CBA All-Star Game in Casper Wyoming in 1984.
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