We're already missing Smart's playmaking and continuity with the starters.
His contributions in the Magic game were so worth it.
Can we drop the magic game already. Smart could easily have gotten hurt in the first few mins of this game.
Sure, if those two games were in any way analogous, but they're not.
Please go check what pretty EVERY other coach did in the second to last game.
What if Smart had been hurt in game 80 instead of game 81? He should have sat that one, too. Or game 79? Should have sat there. And obviously game 78.
Hell, he should have sat all year to make sure he stayed healthy. I'm sure he would have LOVED that
Uh, game 80 there was literally reason to play, i.e. home court advantage - there was literally no reason to play the last two games. Literally none.
People want to keep pointing at other teams and saying what they did, but that's apples and oranges. Take Milwaukee, for example, who continued to play some of their main guys on and off over the final games once they had the best record locked up after winning the Philly game. But that's a different context. It's a hard sell to sit your main guys three games in a row at the end of the season, but that's a lot easier to do with only two games remaining, which is why you saw Giannis sit two of the final three games.
Hell, Brad could've even played the main guys for a single stint or the first half and that'd be understandable, but he didn't. He played them the entire game short of cutting Horford and Baynes' final stint in the fourth quarter, and it got us down a starter for the forseeable future. Rationalize it however you want, but that's clearly a mistake on Brad, and the arguments being put forth to absolve him of blame are all rife with poor logic.