Wow, I think this thread is brilliant. Truly an excellent topic. Reminds me of a subject I read somewhere else recently. Oh yeah, the one I started on the front page this morning.
Anyway, I have noticed Doc going with the two starters and three bench guys rotations more often. Am I saying it's happening every game? No. But I specifically remember him using it in the second quarter of one of the Toronto games, in the second quarter of the Phoenix game, for a decent part of the 2nd quarter of the Orlando game, and for today's game. Also, he has never gone to a 5 man all bench lineup in the 1st half of any game over the last 8-9 games that I can remember.
Has he gone to all bench squads in the second halves of games during blowouts? Of course he has. But he hasn't in the first half and that's a change from the beginning part of the year. And he is mixing in the two starter, three bench stuff more often, usually in tighter games.
I think this is a huge difference from what Doc used to do which was play bunches of 5 man Green Teams in the 2nd and 4th quarters no matter the situation or the score. And if he didn't go to the all bench team he only ever had one starter on the court at a time for 8-9 minute stretches in each half.
He has completely gone away from those long stretches unless it's a blowout and has kept starters in there more and more. Not all the time but definitely way more than the first 30 games of the year. I think he's learned that every game is absolutely needing a constant flow the whole game and not these hills and valleys in swings that the way he was coaching and the way the players were playing was creating.
But to the Tony Allen thing. Couple of things. Since he has been out both Doc and Tom Thibs have publicly criticized Tony Allen's defense stating that it hasn't been near as good and been very over rated by many. Danny has gone public with the statement that Pruitt might be the team's best perimeter defender. Couple that with a very simple stat that both Coach Thibs and Doc have mentioned, turnovers.
In 11 MPG in Jan. Gabe Pruitt is averaging 0.5 TOPG. In 18.8 MPG Eddie House has averaged 0.8 TOPG. They have been Jan.'s main bench backcourt as TA has only played in 2 games this month.
Compare that to the month of Dec. where the primary bench backcourt was Eddie House playing 16.9 MPG and having 0.9 TOPG and TA playing 19.3 MPG and averaging 2.2 TOPG. The difference in TO's generated by the backcourt has been huge. As has been Eddie's increase in shooting percentage as he's shooting went from 39.8% in Dec to 46.4% in Jan. The difference, the ability to play to his strength of having someone getting him the ball where he can do the most damage rather than having to worry about running the team.
Personally I think it's a no brainer and Doc has to keep the true PG at the helm and tell Tony if he wants minutes he is going to need to dislodge Eddie from the SG position or wait for Pruitt or Eddie to play themselves out of the rotation. This group is working and screwing with it would be bad.
And.....I'm going to go out on a ledge and say a bunch of you are wrong. Doc isn't just going to give Tony his minutes back. I think he's starting to trust Pruitt and from the comments that came out of him regarding Tony's defense I think he may have lost some in Tony. Because let's face it, if Tony can't give you good defense out there, he's a liability.
