Does Doc ride the starters too much/not trust the bench enough?

[bfrombleacher]

I'm voting sort of yes.

Doc played Avery Bradley over E'Twaun Moore, even when Moore was the better player.

Also how can you people harp over Jajuan's production and compare him to Marshon Brooks when he has way less minutes and no touches? But I think this is justified since we do have 2 PFs ahead of him plus we really needed the win today. I think his time will come.

Here's the only biff I have with Doc's minutes management though. In the first two games, Doc leaned heavily on the starters, Bass and the players in his trust circle to make a comeback. If in the Heat game we didn't get garbage calls leading to Marquis's foul trouble, I don't think he would have played Dooling in our attempt at a comeback. Look what Dooling did. I think this won't be too big of a problem as with the addition of Pietrus and the return of Pierce, Doc's good list will be long enough to have healthy starters come playoff time.

All in all, I think Doc does lean on the starters a lot. Its annoying since it wears out the starters sometimes (like in the New Orleans game) but thanks to a mixture of Danny's genius and luck (mostly luck this time in my opinion. Pietrus and Bass were both given away. Stiemsma was a cool choice though.) it isn't much of a problem at this point.

[Meadowlark_Scal]

I'd say more to the effect that someone in management has their favorites...Marquis Daniels seems to get all the chances to play / turn into someone better....but I haven't ever seen him string together a whole game of success, never mind 2 games. It is guys like him that a rookie in that spot could do no worse. There are others also.

[Chief]

I'd say more to the effect that someone in management has their favorites...Marquis Daniels seems to get all the chances to play / turn into someone better....but I haven't ever seen him string together a whole game of success, never mind 2 games. It is guys like him that a rookie in that spot could do no worse. There are others also.

Funny thing about Marquis is that he is never in his comfort spots on offense. He's always standing at the baseline three with  about a 10% chance of making the shot. Maybe that is where he is suppose to be in the offense. But if I were the coach and that was true, I'd have a player in the game who could make the shot. Also, I've not seen one thing that leads me to believe Daniels can guard all-star caliber players at his positions (sg/sf).

[TA9]

I'm voting sort of yes.

Doc played Avery Bradley over E'Twaun Moore, even when Moore was the better player.

I dont know if Etwaun is better than Bradley overall..
Yes his offense is superior compared to Bradleys.
But Etwaun is no where near Bradleys defense.
I dont know if anybody have noticed but Etwaun moves his feets very slowly on D.

[celtics2]

Doc could bankrupt the National Health Care Plan all by himself. I'm not a fan of Doc. I think he's lucky he ran into the Celts. A Players Coach. Sounds pleasant doesn't it. He is bringing on prematurely the end of the Big 3 and working on Rondo also. Maybe another Coach and the Celts have 2 rings. A low blow but possible. They gotta put something up in the rafters for Eddie Lacerte someday.

[Celtics4ever]

It is clear he doesn't trust guys who don't perform well.   That is about any coach though.  Doc has always rode his starters.

[mqtcelticsfan]

I say no, because right now it's good for the starters to be playing some extended minutes. With the exception of Rondo and Allen, nobody is playing more than 30 a night, anyway.

[Eja117]

I voted yes with little hesitation.  When it's a drubbing either way and you still won't let your bench play I just don't get it. It's like when Brady is out there in the 4th quarter of a preseason game or something and they want us to believe they're working on something. Right. There's something Brady just doesn't understand that he needs to work on here. Now. Instead of in practice. Poor coaching. It happens.

[mqtcelticsfan]

I voted yes with little hesitation.  When it's a drubbing either way and you still won't let your bench play I just don't get it. It's like when Brady is out there in the 4th quarter of a preseason game or something and they want us to believe they're working on something. Right. There's something Brady just doesn't understand that he needs to work on here. Now. Instead of in practice. Poor coaching. It happens.

To be fair, when the hell is practice going to be? With this many games in such a short stretch, there can't be much time for practice.

[Eja117]

I voted yes with little hesitation.  When it's a drubbing either way and you still won't let your bench play I just don't get it. It's like when Brady is out there in the 4th quarter of a preseason game or something and they want us to believe they're working on something. Right. There's something Brady just doesn't understand that he needs to work on here. Now. Instead of in practice. Poor coaching. It happens.

To be fair, when the hell is practice going to be? With this many games in such a short stretch, there can't be much time for practice.

All the more reason to give PT to the young guys when reasonable, right?

[mqtcelticsfan]

I voted yes with little hesitation.  When it's a drubbing either way and you still won't let your bench play I just don't get it. It's like when Brady is out there in the 4th quarter of a preseason game or something and they want us to believe they're working on something. Right. There's something Brady just doesn't understand that he needs to work on here. Now. Instead of in practice. Poor coaching. It happens.

To be fair, when the hell is practice going to be? With this many games in such a short stretch, there can't be much time for practice.

All the more reason to give PT to the young guys when reasonable, right?

I would say no, because their development isn't nearly as important as getting the starters up to speed. It'd be like having a practice where the starters just go chill out and take a nap while focusing on Avery Bradley's jumpshot.

[2short]

eh? riding his starters, that would be kc jones, some aren't old enough to remember but that was the starting team, 2 subs? and play every minute

To me its the coaches job, if I was the coach of this years team.  Forget about the regular season record, we have some older guys I want healthy, I want all the guys in my PLAYOFF rotation to have game time and confidence.  Doc has gone out of his way to give bradley minutes he didn't deserve.  The idea that doc won't play rookies is a myth.  I was worried when kg and ray were getting some serious minutes the first 2 games AND the fact that if rondo is run into the ground our team goes nowhere.  Maybe once the minutes work out and the bench meshes we can see game rests of certain guys.  Daniels & Bass I feel look really good off the bench, get a couple others comfortable and see what doc can do with minutes and the crazy schedule this year.

[Eja117]

I voted yes with little hesitation.  When it's a drubbing either way and you still won't let your bench play I just don't get it. It's like when Brady is out there in the 4th quarter of a preseason game or something and they want us to believe they're working on something. Right. There's something Brady just doesn't understand that he needs to work on here. Now. Instead of in practice. Poor coaching. It happens.

To be fair, when the hell is practice going to be? With this many games in such a short stretch, there can't be much time for practice.

All the more reason to give PT to the young guys when reasonable, right?

I would say no, because their development isn't nearly as important as getting the starters up to speed. It'd be like having a practice where the starters just go chill out and take a nap while focusing on Avery Bradley's jumpshot.

This year you might have a point, but that doesn't explain past years. Ray is clearly in shape. He doesn't need to play into shape. If anything the team needs to catch up to him.  I'm not sure it's a good idea to try to play into shape.  After the last lockout there were some guys like Kemp that came back in horrid shape and weren't able to play into shape. A guy like JON who gets hurt every year is just as likely to play into the hospital, especially if he isn't in shape

[BudweiserCeltic]

I voted yes with little hesitation.  When it's a drubbing either way and you still won't let your bench play I just don't get it. It's like when Brady is out there in the 4th quarter of a preseason game or something and they want us to believe they're working on something. Right. There's something Brady just doesn't understand that he needs to work on here. Now. Instead of in practice. Poor coaching. It happens.

To be fair, when the hell is practice going to be? With this many games in such a short stretch, there can't be much time for practice.

All the more reason to give PT to the young guys when reasonable, right?

I would say no, because their development isn't nearly as important as getting the starters up to speed. It'd be like having a practice where the starters just go chill out and take a nap while focusing on Avery Bradley's jumpshot.

This year you might have a point, but that doesn't explain past years. Ray is clearly in shape. He doesn't need to play into shape. If anything the team needs to catch up to him.  I'm not sure it's a good idea to try to play into shape.  After the last lockout there were some guys like Kemp that came back in horrid shape and weren't able to play into shape. A guy like JON who gets hurt every year is just as likely to play into the hospital, especially if he isn't in shape

I've never bought the whole, "developing isn't as important as", to me it's all about optimizing your roster for this year. You play your bench and rookies (at least the ones that look competent) to have as many prepared bodies as you can by the end of the year.

We don't want to be in the same situation as we were back in 2008-2009 when maybe if Doc had "developed" Bill Walker a bit more he could've helped us during the playoffs some when we really needed a SF to step up. Something that was clearly on the agenda since the start of the season, but Doc didn't address it. He was content with playing Scal. Oh, and ensuring Pierce ran out of gas.

[Eja117]

I'm not saying Doc should take starters out of close games. I just don't see why he and the Pats seem to play them in meaningless scenarios as though they are robots instead of human beings. I could even see keeping younger and more in shape guys in there more (Pierce/Ray), but for the older more tired and run down guys, especially if they're critical (KG, Jon), it's painful to watch. You end up having to play rookies that way anyway