You know what's so frustrating to me about Doc's rest pattern with Garnett besides how much it reeks of trying to be too cute: it flies in the face of how important first quarters are to winning games. Here's an article that broke down just that, well, that and how important the third quarter is too. It's a good read.
http://www.82games.com/random11.htmUp to last year, ever since KG arrived the Celtics used to be an excellent first quarter team. I didn't break down point differential in their first quarters but here's their won-lost record in first quarters for the last three seasons:
2011: 49-30-3 (56-26 record) I call this the pre-Stupid KG Rest Pattern Era
2012: 33-30-3 (39-27 record) I call this the start of the Stupid KG Rest Pattern Era
2013: 11-15-1 (14-14 record) I didn't record exactly how they've fared against good versus bad teams but predictably, they've been much worse against good teams. They're 2-0 against the Wizards by the way.
I obviously haven't broken this information down much and maybe it's just all junk. Maybe the fact that KG has played the fewest first and third quarter minutes of any essential starter (i.e. not Willie Green for instance) in the league means nothing. I personally don't buy it. If KG is going to get his 31 minutes ago, please let him play against starters more often, please.