That's my recommendation for the next season.

I think it's safe to say that our starting five is fine and will be fine, more often than not.

With that in mind, I'd rather not try to make for another 62+ season, with the idea of playing the first 6-7 players for a vast majority of the games. I'd rather we play everyone, be down by 8-12 pts, entering the 4th, tighten the defenses as the primary players rotate back in, and try to win it close, or take the loss and stop worrying about it.

If we go with our bench against their starters, we're gonna be down by more than 8-12 points.

Why wouldn't you want to go with the starters and then be way ahead of them?  Then we can go with the bench while guaranteeing a win.

With the new retooled Lakers needing some time to settle in together before they hit their stride, I think running out to an early lead might be the difference in the playoffs with regard to HCA.  Rather give ourselves whatever advantage we can get against them, they scare the hell out of me...

I used to think the same thing..but meh. I don't think its a great idea. HCA is important. Very important.

Not to mention having a steady lineup that knows how to win close games when they count the most.

Folks, here's what you're forgetting, Doc usually sticks to his top 7 and then what normally happens is that either Rondo, Ray Ray, or Pierce go for 40 min nights, on a routine basis. The result, as you know is that come playoff time, everyone aside from House/BBD, is useless.

Realize, in 2008, when we won it all, the bench was Posey/Powe/House/Brown and then BBD/Cassell. That was considerable juice off the pine. This year, however, we can't depend upon having the league's pre-existing *best bench* to win it all. Instead, we need to focus on developing the best bench in the league. If you recall, in '86, KC had once started with Walton, Sichting, Kite (believe it or not), Carlisle, and the rest and rotated in the starting 5. Well... they won that game. This year, we have a far better roster than just Sichting and Walton... we have an experienced BBD, 'Sheed, House, Marquis, and the others. And no, we don't have to play the bench, 40 mins per game, only slices of 5-10 mins but with enough slices so that all of them get a lot of playtime, all season long.

Before KG got hurt last year, which was like the end of January, the most minutes anyone was averaging was 35.9 by both Ray and Paul. everyone else was at 32.4 minutes per game or below. People were in no way shape or form being sent out on the court for 40 minutes per game on a regular basis. Your claim to that has no factual evidence of occurring before a rash of injuries occurred while the team was in the middle of a race for HCA.

KG, Scal, Powe and Tony's injuries and POB's trade all went down nearly within a week to 10 days of each other. It completely changed the landscape of the team and forced Doc to extend the minutes of Ray, Paul and Rondo and Baby. If the team is healthy, like in 2008, there is no reason to believe that Doc won't meter out minutes at a reduced rate like he did in the championship season.

Here's the thing, though:  by playing the bench more, the team would be involved in a lot more close, grueling games.  Presumably, games like that are more physically and mentally wearing.

I don't buy this at all. First because playing the starters heavy minutes also makes them take possessions off to keep their fatigue down (particularly defensively). Even with our starters playing a lot of minutes last year, we still found ourselves in a lot of close games. The problem here was that we were playing some "grueling" games, while at the same time our starters were dead tired.

So while we might play some more closer games overall, our starters would be fresher throughout the game and in a better position to close out a game if needed be.

It's all about balance, and that's the part that I think Doc hasn't figured out well yet. There are numerous opportunities to get your players rest throughout the game without much risk in "losing the game".

If Doc wants/has to play the starters heavy minutes, he has to learn how to find better ways to rest them... this is something he's not doing well. What I mean by this is sitting your main guys at the end of quarters (don't get them back on the floor with 1 second left just to run 1 play), and use the time out more wisely.

Anyways, it's all about balance. When Mikki and Marbury were playing overall awful basketball for us, we still managed to go 16-7 or something like that. We can manage.

First because playing the starters heavy minutes also makes them take possessions off to keep their fatigue down (particularly defensively). Even with our starters playing a lot of minutes last year, we still found ourselves in a lot of close games. The problem here was that we were playing some "grueling" games, while at the same time our starters were dead tired.

Why do we have to play our starters "heavy" minutes?  As nick noted, prior to KG's injury both Pierce and Ray were averaging less than 36 minutes per game, meaning they were resting more than 25% of each game.  If Marquis Daniels allows each of them an extra 3 - 4 minutes of rest, I'm not sure that heavy minutes are a concern.

I don't think there will be any need to force feed the bench minutes.  Doc can play a nine man rotation that allows us to avoid burning out the starters while also winning games.  Beyond our top nine, I don't think there's any reason at all to force feed others minutes, except in garbage time.

I'd say there's a balance between the two.  I don't want us sitting the starters for long periods for its own sake, but I'd like to see us use our more versatile bench to keep minutes down.  In most games, especially back-to-backs, I think Doc should try an all-bench, or 4 bench + Rondo, lineup for a few minutes in the 2nd quarter, just to give our guys a guaranteed break.  The Spurs seem to try to keep their Big 3's minutes down to ~32 a game, somewhere around that (maybe a little lower for KG) would be great by me.

But remember, we don't want to give the new bench guys a ton of experience playing with the old bench guys, we want to give them experience playing with the starters, since those are the kinds of lineups we're going to lean on in the playoffs.  Sheed needs significant oncourt time with KG and with Perk, not so much with Baby.