Doc put Rondo in because he wanted his starters in. It had nothing to do with him thinking Rondo played better defense, he just thought the 1st team was more cohesive and familiar with eachother. He said so himself.
And Rondo is in the middle because he wants to poke away the ball for steals. He isn't trying to have some big presence in a double team on the big. That is just the facts. He is young, it happens. Marbury was the exact same way in Minnesota.
uh... in the qoute your looking for he specificly mentioned he thought the starters were more cohesive on both ends of the floor...one would assume at least on end is defense.
I have no idea what you are trying to say here. Other than pointing out what I just said.
ok ill go through my reasoning step by step.
Doc put Rondo in because he wanted his starters in. It had nothing to do with him thinking Rondo played better defense, he just thought the 1st team was more cohesive and familiar with eachother.
your entire post is that rondo wasn't inserted for steph due to his defense here, but because the starters play better together on both ends of the floor. this doesn't make sense.
marbury, according to you, was playing defense at the same level as rondo is capable of, and at the time he was on the floor with allen, perk, and baby. The only change is pierce if you don't sub rondo and keep steph on the floor.
Your telling me that steph, who was bailing us out along with baby, was playing defense as well as rondo? please. notice we didnt get a stop the entire time steph was scoring.
but lets assume he was, we have to get rondo out there, horrid offense and all, because it makes the other 4 guys besides steph all warm and fuzzy inside when rondo's out there, so they carried him defensively?
far more reasonable is that rondo, a 2nd team all defense player, is a better defender than marbury, which is in fact the case in reality. This is not a knock on steph's effort, and not everyone is a great defender, but to say doc substituted a player in who was stinking it up on offense just to make 4 other guys feel better out there? give me a break.
Steph is many things, i love what he's brought, and his defensive effort has been a very welcome suprise, but he's not that good of a defender. Eddie house busts his tail on defense too, but he's not a better defender than ray allen or rondo. Some guys just aren't as good on defense as others. If effort was all it took, mikki moore would be defensive player of the year.
If steph was as good of a defender as rondo, our lineup would have been;
steph
allen
paul
baby
perk
but thats not our best defensive lineup, our starters are, and we needed stops.
doc went out of his way to say he needed the starters back in because they needed a unit that played more coherent (read: better) defense.
the more reasonable conclusion than marbury has suddenly become a great defender is that rondo is in fact a better defender than marbury, and was in fact subsisted for defensive purposes, since as horrid night offensively as he had, which steph saved us from no doubt, he is still a better defender than marbury.
Ergo, the subs had to have SOMETHING to do with defense, which you claimed wasn't the case, at a critical point in the game, and it worked. suddenly, low and behold, we got stops.