Nobody is surprised that we're getting our ass kicked in this quarter. Might have something to do with these trash lineups Brad continues to roll out to start the 2nd.
Yeah, this flip-flopping with the bench rotations and the staggering of the starters is just baffling.
He went with the Al/Tatum staggering with the main bench group for several games, and it seemingly worked. Why he suddenly changed his mind is beyond me.
Serious question, because I see this comment a lot...is it possible that Brad is in the same mindset as the Warriors, Spurs, Cavs, etc...that essentially the regular season is pointless other than preparing for the post-season? Just like he's shifting our team to only three positions...he's only trying to shift the team to a group of players that can succeed in any type of lineup? So he's using 82 games to refine and determine which players can make that shift and which ones can't? And if we need to use the DPE or trades to find other players that can do it, we'll glean that info as well.
Don't really know if the strategy will ultimately be good or bad...but other than home court advantage, since we're almost guaranteed to make the playoffs in this conference...isn't this a better use of our regular season than simply trying to have the best record in the Eastern conference?
Well, we're not good enough to not care about the regular season. Not yet. Especially with Hayward's injury. Brad doesn't strike me as someone who'd be complacent about poor regular season effort and losses. He obviously knows a lot more than we do, but these strange lineups will never show up in the playoffs, and it doesn't seem to be beneficial for these inexperienced players to try to play disorganized ball together because they don't have enough talent to play as a cohesive unit.
Just my take. TP for being a new guy though 
Thanks for my first TP.
I'm not suggesting Stevens doesn't care about season effort (opposite actually)...but is he willing to sacrifice a handful of wins this season, in the pursuit of learning more about which combinations will work...I think so.
When I'm frustrated with some of these lineups...I think: Brad Stevens is a smart, basketball guy...he spends more time thinking about this stuff than I do. So I assume he too, can easily notice that some of these 2nd quarter lineups are garbage...so why do it?
It's super frustrating as a fan to watch a scientist experiment with trials that feel like they are bound to fail before it even begins...but if we're not going to have the talent to match the Warriors and Cavs (which we don't)...we need some other advantage...and perhaps a high level of plug-n-play chemistry that can overcome foul trouble, injuries to stars, etc is that advantage.
But then again...I'm new around here...
Here's another TP for a good discussion.
I definitely think this type of philosophy plays into it. Brad (for better or worse) has always done a ton of experimenting with the rotations in the regular season, and I think minute management is also a part of it.
But here's the thing that I don't get - most of these lineups won't even be a factor in the playoffs. Figuring that Morris gets healthy and not counting on Hayward coming back, we'll only be playing 8-10 guys deep in our rotation in the playoffs (Kyrie, Brown, Tatum, Morris, Horford, Rozier, Smart,Semi (rarely), Theis, and Baynes), and generally five to six of those guys (Kyrie, Brown, Tatum, Morris, Horford, and Smart) will take up the majority of the minutes with Baynes, Theis, Rozier, and Semi all having their playing time dependent upon matchups or if one of the main guys is having a bad night.
So when we see these lineups of all bench units that are costing us games due to the huge deficit they build up, I don't think this rationale can really justify that. Especially with the injuries we've dealt with and the fact that we're going to be seeing much more integration of starter/bench lineups in the playoffs, I think simply having more integrated units is a good compromise between experimenting with differing lineups/managing minutes and still not harming our chances of winning games.
Topic: Bulls (10-21) at Celtics (26-9) Game #36 12/23/17 (Read 15291 times)