I don't think Robert Williams was coming off the bench purely because of match up or "demotion" aspects. I think it was a combination of shortening rotation (less bigs playing in playoffs) and Williams still battling knee issues coming into the playoffs.
In order for the Horford/Timelord combo to work, they need to play big minutes. Horford played 39 minutes tonight, Timelord 28... both above normal for them. Which is all good and dandy as long as they hold up physically and stay out of foul trouble... which is a concern.
I did see Robert having some issues getting down the floor in both ends at times, so that's something we need to be careful about. But I think the main aspect on why the rotation has been as it is, is mainly due to the lack of 3 men big rotation at the moment.
I don’t buy this. The only reason we don’t have a three big man rotation is because Joe has frozen GWill out of the lineup mysteriously. GWill was a key, important cog for us last year, but Joe has just went a different direction.
And it’s directly because he likes playing smaller with more shooting out there, which we’re able to do more now with Brogdon. So that means less two big lineups, and Timelord is more valuable than GWill, limiting his minutes.
I’m sure the injuries and time management also factor in, but it’s clearly Joe’s offense/three-centric and deprioritized defensive philosophy that is the main reason behind this. Just listen to his game analyses - it’s never a problem with the D and always about not getting the right types of shots.
Doesn't matter WHY Grant is not playing, but it's a fact that we're not playing him... so it will affect rotation decisions. So there's nothing to "buy" in that regard. That's the point I'm making. By your admission though, that he likes to play smaller for better offense than playing big, then Grant would be playing more if that was the case, but it's not happening.
And yet he was starting Timelord before he got injured again, and you guys may have forgotten that he was scratched from games ending the season because he was battling knee soreness. Again, I'm not saying if this was wise or not, or good or not... I'm just saying that his decisions may not have been purely from a match-up stand-point, but partly because of shortening rotation and health concerns.
Even so, our small line ups with White in the starting line up have been good as well, so... I won't gripe about it too much.
As for game analyses, I think you guys are taking things out of context (even at times putting words in his mouth of things that he hasn't said) or not listening to all of it because he talks about defense plenty. But it is true that he puts an emphasis on offense, and for a good reason... our stagnant offense and turnovers often lead to disasters.
Add to that, we are actually playing accomplished defensive players here. It's not like we're putting players in there that can't play a lick of defense but can give us good offense. And going back to Grant... all season we've been hearing on this site how much he sucks, and now he's supposed to be the savior for all that ills us? Please. Even so, he should be getting some playing time in my opinion.
Regardless, even though superstars sometimes do what they do no matter what you throw at them, our defense on the Sixers has been effective for the most part. We've held them under 90 points twice in this series so far... something the Sixers failed to reach 2 times as well all season. We are holding a 49% shooting team to 44%, and holding a 115 point per game team to 104 points per game.
Their stars are performing below their norm including the current NBA MVP. And I wish we'd do better defensively, because I know we can, but this offense vs defense discussion is quite overblown as far as I'm concerned.
Since we like to play the "what if" game as far as this series being over... maybe this series is over if Brogdon doesn't turnover the ball to end the game carelessly, maybe this series is over if Brown doesn't leave Harden wide open from the corner, and yes... maybe it's over if Joe had used his [dang] time outs.
And since we love comparing to last year's team, the big success we had during the playoffs defensively were against the Bucks without Middleton (Giannis was spectacular though, but we did a great job on him) and Miami with an injured Butler and Lowry. Even when we swept the Nets, in part because of the job Tatum did on Durant, our defensive performance wasn't up to par. Same can be said vs Golden State. Now, versus Atlanta our defense was terrible, that much is true, but against Philadelphia it's been overblown. Just to put things into a bit of perspective.
Also, we need someone to wipe off the butter hands we have in our team... no one can catch the [dang] ball cleanly when good passes are made, so frustrating. Timelord and Brown in particular suffer from this. But that's a discussion for another thread.
Topic: Fire Joe! ... or critique Joe ... or defend Joe... or worry about Joe's coaching (Read 722012 times)