Resting Our Starters in the Regular Season

[zerophase]

lets not rest them too much. lets not turn them into the next detroit who keeps giving their starters a night off and ultimately looses their spark.

[Shaqzilla]

I agrre to an extent. Keep the Big 3 to 32-36 minutes on average and maybe less if they blow out some teams.

[guava_wrench]

Have more blowouts and the minutes will drop organically.

Are we going to over-analyze this every season?

[JBcat]

It can be a fine line between not enough rest and too much rest.  Remember when the last month or so of the regular season where Doc really cut down the minutes of the big 3 and even sat them for some games.   What good did that do for the first 2 rounds of the playoffs?   You could argue they were a little flat because of all the rest they got at the tail end of the regular season.  As some have said KG got plenty of rest last year at 32.8 MPG and should be roughly the same this year especially with the improved play of BBD and Powe.  Even with Posey gone I don't think Paul and Ray will be overextended that much because TA will get the bulk of the backup minutes for those 2 now and you might even see Scal get some spot minutes at the SF spot against certain players.  I think the best way to incorporate the 4 guys you mentioned O'Bryant, Giddens, Walker, and Pruitt is give them spot minutes but by no means regular minutes unless if they earned it.  If not one of those guys have earned it by midseason DA will most likely have some further tinkering with the team (which could be why he wants to keep a roster spot open).  I think Doc has done a decent job in the past playing a young guy for a few spot minutes in the second quarter to get his feet wet and that is what he should do from time to time with these young players.

For the record Paul had 29 40 minute games last regular season, Garnett had 5, and Allen had 19.  I don't mind that many 40 minute games again for Paul and Ray again as long as it is offset by enough blowout games where they get plenty of rest.

One last tidbit for minutes played at the end of season.
For the last 9 regular season games in April Allen sat for 2 games and averaged 29 MPG for the other 7.
The last 9 games for KG he sat 2 games and averaged 25.7 MPG for the other 7.
The last 9 games for Paul he sat 2 games and averaged 27.4 MPG for the other 7.

[BudweiserCeltic]

Have more blowouts and the minutes will drop organically.

Are we going to over-analyze this every season?

As long as the myth of Dallas and Detroit losing in the playoffs because they ran out of gas is around, this will go on.

[Edgar]

Have more blowouts and the minutes will drop organically.

Are we going to over-analyze this every season?

As long as the myth of Dallas and Detroit losing in the playoffs because they ran out of gas is around, this will go on.

late bench
heavy win desire

i dont know

maybe we will have to get use to antonio style yup the saint one

trying to keep home court of course

im not that worried aboout home court anymore theyre all champs now
and bemch is younger
make them run....

[tapper]

I just looked up last years stats in the regular season and Ray and PP played 36 mpg and KG played 32 mpg.
Barring injuries there is no reason those players can't be in the 30-35 minute range on a regular rotation. They are capable of playing those minutes without burnout and rondo and perk can give you 25-30 minutes night in and night out without being overused. So if our starters play approx. 150 minutes per game, that leaves 90 minutes to be divided up by our bench players(240 minutes per game). Those 90 minutes are very important because we need to establish we can win with the bench playing those minutes and more importantly, find out who can play big minutes in the playoffs and make a solid contribution.It might cost us a few wins in the regular season, but the reward for the playoffs( a rested big three and developing solid rotation guys) is the key to #18.

[guava_wrench]

I just looked up last years stats in the regular season and Ray and PP played 36 mpg and KG played 32 mpg.
Barring injuries there is no reason those players can't be in the 30-35 minute range on a regular rotation. They are capable of playing those minutes without burnout and rondo and perk can give you 25-30 minutes night in and night out without being overused. So if our starters play approx. 150 minutes per game, that leaves 90 minutes to be divided up by our bench players(240 minutes per game). Those 90 minutes are very important because we need to establish we can win with the bench playing those minutes and more importantly, find out who can play big minutes in the playoffs and make a solid contribution.It might cost us a few wins in the regular season, but the reward for the playoffs( a rested big three and developing solid rotation guys) is the key to #18.

Don't forget, the games off at the end of the season aren't factored into the MPG, so they essentially played less.

MPG is deceptive. I would just be careful with them on back to backs to avoid fatigue related injuries. They should also remain conservative when handling injuries, sitting the players like they did last season.

[Ersatz]

MPG is deceptive.

It is. Because the Cs had so many blowout wins last year in which the big 3 played under 30 minutes, their mpg were deceptively low. That is, they, particularly Ray and Paul, played 26 in blowouts, but then 40 in tight games. I don't see why they should play 43 minutes in any regular season game, as Pierce and Ray frequently (relative to their age and our record) did. It doesn't make sense. Just stick to a rotation that means they play 36. I know a lot of this was early in the year, when they were trying to get some chemistry, but there's no reason for them to play 40-minute games this year.

[Edgar]

The name if the game isnt MPG is HCA

home court advantage.

[ManUp]

The name if the game isnt MPG is HCA

home court advantage.

I disagree.

Home court advantage was big for us last season because we really needed to get our act together on the road. Now that the team is more experienced and knows how to handles the road pressures I think resting the starters will be a bigger factor.

Pierce and KG were visibly gassed by the end of the finals. Another full throttle season isn't going to help them too much if they plan to be there again next year. The teams main priority should be keeping the starters fresh for the play-offs. Home court advantage shouldn't matter more than fresh legs in the play-offs.

I'd be ok with having the 3rd best record in the league if the Big 3 don't play more than 35 minutes a game. I'd rather not see anymore of the full 48 stuff either. Ray did it atleast 5 times last season.

[Edgar]

The name if the game isnt MPG is HCA

home court advantage.

I disagree.

Home court advantage was big for us last season because we really needed to get our act together on the road. Now that the team is more experienced and knows how to handles the road pressures I think resting the starters will be a bigger factor.

Pierce and KG were visibly gassed by the end of the finals. Another full throttle season isn't going to help them too much if they plan to be there again next year. The teams main priority should be keeping the starters fresh for the play-offs. Home court advantage shouldn't matter more than fresh legs in the play-offs.

I'd be ok with having the 3rd best record in the league if the Big 3 don't play more than 35 minutes a game. I'd rather not see anymore of the full 48 stuff either. Ray did it atleast 5 times last season.

feel free to disagree 
but after last year and with
Cs luck
referees
Tough losts
Surprise teams
and People getting older
to have HCA is vital
that doesnt mean exesive playing time for starters necesarilyç
but a strong bench capable of closing games.

[Sweet17]

I also hate these kinds of threads.

The benefit of playing 5 or so less minutes for an NBA player is hardly proven. It might in fact be a negative not a positive. As another poster already pointed out those 5 minutes less will mean a player is less ready to absorb the added load come playoff times.

The whole "rest them" theory is based on the suspect "they wear out" theory. Which while interesting tells us nothing about what level of effort will wear guys out. If resting 5 minutes a game is so wonderful - shouldn't we have guys practice less? I mean wouldn't that rest help them not "wear out" too? The premise is poorly thought out. The spurs are prime example of that philosophy failing miserably.

Secondly and more importantly home court advantage has TANGIBLE benefits. You can PROVE that home teams are more likely to win playoff games. Knowing this we should play for HCA and then think about "resting" our guys a LITTLE BIT down the stretch. That's exactly what we did last year and we have a championship.

[BballTim]

I just looked up last years stats in the regular season and Ray and PP played 36 mpg and KG played 32 mpg.
Barring injuries there is no reason those players can't be in the 30-35 minute range on a regular rotation. They are capable of playing those minutes without burnout and rondo and perk can give you 25-30 minutes night in and night out without being overused. So if our starters play approx. 150 minutes per game, that leaves 90 minutes to be divided up by our bench players(240 minutes per game). Those 90 minutes are very important because we need to establish we can win with the bench playing those minutes and more importantly, find out who can play big minutes in the playoffs and make a solid contribution.It might cost us a few wins in the regular season, but the reward for the playoffs( a rested big three and developing solid rotation guys) is the key to #18.

Don't forget, the games off at the end of the season aren't factored into the MPG, so they essentially played less.

MPG is deceptive. I would just be careful with them on back to backs to avoid fatigue related injuries. They should also remain conservative when handling injuries, sitting the players like they did last season.

  You also have to consider that the minutes they played were easier minutes than they've played in the past. They don't have to carry the offense and go 1v3 all the time.

[ManUp]

I also hate these kinds of threads.

The benefit of playing 5 or so less minutes for an NBA player is hardly proven. It might in fact be a negative not a positive. As another poster already pointed out those 5 minutes less will mean a player is less ready to absorb the added load come playoff times.

The whole "rest them" theory is based on the suspect "they wear out" theory. Which while interesting tells us nothing about what level of effort will wear guys out. If resting 5 minutes a game is so wonderful - shouldn't we have guys practice less? I mean wouldn't that rest help them not "wear out" too? The premise is poorly thought out. The spurs are prime example of that philosophy failing miserably.

Secondly and more importantly home court advantage has TANGIBLE benefits. You can PROVE that home teams are more likely to win playoff games. Knowing this we should play for HCA and then think about "resting" our guys a LITTLE BIT down the stretch. That's exactly what we did last year and we have a championship.

I think the Spurs are a perfect example of it working.

They are slow starters and strong finishers. They keep there starters minutes down early in the season and while every ones going full throttle they cruise to the play-offs and then turn it up. It's worked for them in the past and probably would've gotten them to the finals if Ginobli didn't get hurt.

Number one seeds don't win championships as much as you'd think.