Jay King @ByJayKingyesterday
Assuming he doesn't check back in over the last 3:08, Dennis Schroder will finish at 16 minutes played tonight. He didn't play more than 17 minutes in any of the previous four games. His playing time has really been squeezed since the Celtics got fully healthy.
Even so, I don't see them relying on Pritchard as the back-up PG based on what little time he's seeing the floor.
We went 8 deep in the rotation, with 6 guys playing 30+ minutes. It's really poor coaching in my opinion, given that we are quite healthy.
Ime has been totally confounded by lineups and minute management all year.
Clearly doesn’t trust anyone outside that 8 man rotation.
This, and he is trying to find some consistency among that top-8. It's not poor coaching.
I don't necessarily believe it's poor coaching, just a lack of trust. The general school of thought is that you want a well rounded team with starters, role players and impact guys off the bench. Most of us are concerned he's "playing the starters into the ground" and "not developing our bench" for the playoffs. But if you think about it, when everyone has been healthy, our bench has the following players: GWill, Schroder and JRich. Those guys are pretty decent for a bench, Schroder and JRich could probably start for a lot of teams.
But because they are starter caliber players who have started for us on occasions when our regular starters have been unavailable, people don't immediately think of them as bench even though they've been significant contributors:

Specifically I think when people tend to mention bench here, it's really talking about 3 players - Aaron, Payton and Romeo. Maybe Freedom. The complaints about "not playing our bench" usually come up when those young guys aren't playing. And it's understandable, youth represents potential and people get more excited about young players than been there done that vets. But it's clear that, whatever our own opinions of those players are, a) Ime doesn't trust them in key moments of must win games; and b) Ime is going for wins rather than giving up on the season and going for development of young players. Unlike most of us they're not prepared to give up the season just yet
