Resting Our Starters in the Regular Season

[silvershamrocker]

In the first part of the regular season, I think Doc should play our starters about 30 minutes a game, and see what our young guys (O'Bryant, Giddens, Walker, Pruitt) can contribute. (I would also add TA so we can see how healthy he is).

Then we know what they can do and Ainge can see what other pieces (if any) we need.  During the second half (post all-star) I would play our starters regular minutes to get ready for the playoffs.

Comments?

EDIT: It also saves the wear and tear on our aging Big Three.

[Roy Hobbs]

I understand the reasoning, but if we rely heavily upon those four players, we *will* lose games. 

Seeing how important home court was last season, I'm not sure we want to lose any more regular season games than is necessary.

[cordobes]

It's highly unlikely Doc will be able to give many minutes to those 4 rookies at the beggining of the season. It'd be bad for the team and bad for them, it's not the right way of developing young players, especially in a team like ours. If one of them wins a regular place at the rotation in the training camp, that would already be huge.

[MrsNumba17]

Losing games will do nothing for the morale and confidence of the team. Let's face it ...we need the big 3 to win games!

[Roy Hobbs]

The other issue, I guess, is how do you soothe the egos of the two (and possibly three) vets who have to be inactive so that the unproven players can get playing time?

[lon3lytoaster]

I understand the reasoning, but if we rely heavily upon those four players, we *will* lose games. 

Seeing how important home court was last season, I'm not sure we want to lose any more regular season games than is necessary.

I'm actually going to go ahead and call them not winning on the road until Detroit a fluke. Obviously the home court advantage is always going to be important, but I wouldn't put money on the Celtics not winning a road game until the conference finals next year.

It was their first playoffs appearance together, after all and what they did after the Cleveland series wasn't too short of amazing, I'd say. Especially those comebacks against Detroit and LA in their buildings.

[BudweiserCeltic]

I don't know about 30 minutes a game, but around 35 minutes should be a good target. I think it should be quite an attainable target, while still winning games, and giving the rest some good playing time.  My reasoning here is that there shouldn't be the need there was last year to work much on the execution of our starters and working on thier chemistry.

Also, I think a real back-up center (hopefully O'bryant can at the least be it through the early portion of the season) should help matters.  One of the main reasons for the heavy minutes to Ray and Paul was the "need" to use Posey at the 4 constantly, with Tony recovering from his injury, having little back-ups available to spell some minutes from Ray and Paul. This shouldn't be a problem this season. Even without a real back-up C, this phenomenon shouldn't occur with this roster as our SG/SF back-ups won't move to the PF position so they should be available to spell some minutes from these guys. Through the season, Doc had little trouble resting KG.

Pierce is the only one that could move to the PF position if needed, and if that's the case, he'll be the one that Doc will have trouble with. Doc should be able to rest Ray well.

[wdleehi]

Bring down the minutes the starters have to play in the regular season is a good thing (though 30 is a little extreme)



One more reason the Celtics need two more reliable vet bench players.

[silvershamrocker]

We do need to rest our starters a lot more this year. I do not want a 33 year old shooting guard playing 40 minutes a game again. I don't want KG playing too many minutes either, and none at the center position (or very few) to save wear and tear. Pierce I don't worry about as much because he is the youngest and the most durable of the 3 IMHO. 35 max for all of them.

I think Doc played them a lot last year because he wanted them to gel and get used to playing with each other. Also, besides Eddie and Posey, he didn't seem to have much faith in our bench.

Well, this year the big three have played together for a year and don't need to gel as much. At the same time, we don't know what our young guys will give us (if anything), and we have to find out and not just let them sit on the bench.

We don't have to play them(our rookies, OB and Pruitt) a lot of minutes, between 10-12 is good. And definitely not all at the same time.

Maybe 30 is a little extreme, 35 sounds good to me. (TP BudweiserCeltic)

[kozlodoev]

I don't get these threads.

First, that's never going to work. You play the guys the entire season for 30 minutes, and then all of a sudden come playoffs you ask them to do 10 extra minutes per game. the transition just doesn't work. The Spurs tried it last season and it didn't get them far.

Second, you want the starters on the floor because, frankly, they have to win you games, so the repetitive execution of game situations is vital. These guys get little time to practice together as it is.

Third, contrary to popular opinion, all our starters were well-rested come playoffs. Going down to 36 minutes per game represented a substantial playing time cut for all of them. Indeed, about 35 minutes per game is a good target, but I am strongly against cutting playing time for the sake of cutting playing time.

Oh, and by the way, the real way for young guys to learn is to put them on the floor with the veterans, not instead of the veterans. Which means cutting the playing time of guys like Tony Allen, and House, not Ray Allen or Pierce.

[Reyquila]

You are all assuming that we make the playoffs, right?

[orrzor]

People were so worried about minutes last year and it amounted to a hill of beans. I think Ray Allen and Pierce each played 36 mpg, which was the lowest they've done in their past 5 seasons, and KG was at 33 mpg. I don't think that's a problem at all.

[nickagneta]

These guys(GPA)are only going to be 4 months older when they take the court in November as they were when last they played. Knocking upwards of 15% of their playing time off is not going to keep them any younger or fresher.

They just played more games in a season than ahy other team in league history and they were still playing the strongest ball in the league. This isn't a running team that is getting older, it's a half court, limit the number of possessions, dictate the pace type of team.

Keeping the minutes right where they were last year will be just fine. By the end of the year Doc had managed minutes of his players very well keeping the GPA as much as 10% lower than they were used to ever playing before and increasing minutes of other players that needed the PT to grow.

A similar formula, another quick start, another early wrap up of the best record in the league and the guys can get rested for the playoffs some and make another run.

[wdleehi]

I don't get these threads.

First, that's never going to work. You play the guys the entire season for 30 minutes, and then all of a sudden come playoffs you ask them to do 10 extra minutes per game. the transition just doesn't work. The Spurs tried it last season and it didn't get them far.

Second, you want the starters on the floor because, frankly, they have to win you games, so the repetitive execution of game situations is vital. These guys get little time to practice together as it is.

Third, contrary to popular opinion, all our starters were well-rested come playoffs. Going down to 36 minutes per game represented a substantial playing time cut for all of them. Indeed, about 35 minutes per game is a good target, but I am strongly against cutting playing time for the sake of cutting playing time.

Oh, and by the way, the real way for young guys to learn is to put them on the floor with the veterans, not instead of the veterans. Which means cutting the playing time of guys like Tony Allen, and House, not Ray Allen or Pierce.

They won a title doing it the year before. 




30 minutes a game is to little.


but playing Ray and Pierce the type of minutes KG got wouldn't hurt this team.  (32.8 minutes a game in the regular season)

[Jon]

I don't get these threads.

First, that's never going to work. You play the guys the entire season for 30 minutes, and then all of a sudden come playoffs you ask them to do 10 extra minutes per game. the transition just doesn't work. The Spurs tried it last season and it didn't get them far.

Second, you want the starters on the floor because, frankly, they have to win you games, so the repetitive execution of game situations is vital. These guys get little time to practice together as it is.

Third, contrary to popular opinion, all our starters were well-rested come playoffs. Going down to 36 minutes per game represented a substantial playing time cut for all of them. Indeed, about 35 minutes per game is a good target, but I am strongly against cutting playing time for the sake of cutting playing time.

Oh, and by the way, the real way for young guys to learn is to put them on the floor with the veterans, not instead of the veterans. Which means cutting the playing time of guys like Tony Allen, and House, not Ray Allen or Pierce.

They won a title doing it the year before. 




30 minutes a game is to little.


but playing Ray and Pierce the type of minutes KG got wouldn't hurt this team.  (32.8 minutes a game in the regular season)

There's no way they're going to give rookies that type of run.  That's something developing teams that are lottery bound do.  But as wdleehi said, they should restrict their minutes.  Definitely try to avoid those 40 minute games for them.  But if their minutes drop, so will their stats.  And while I don't personally care about that, I think they will.  Ray Allen still has another contract to play for and I don't think he'd be thrilled at the prospect of seeing his ppg average drop to below 15.