Originally posted by: skywater : "When we leaded 20 points, he did not use bench players for resting the starters. After those starters feel tired, our leading shut and easy wins become a hard 4th quarter!" I definately agree w/your point ... JVG should give the second unit a chance to play some ball when we are up by atleast 20. I think this is why we have been up in multiple occasions by 15-20+ pts and lost the lead in the latter half of the game. I would love to see Lil jon, kill bill or sure shot steve on the floor for atleast 5 min's or so. Man...By the way... Where is Bonzi? Was he even at the game tonight?
Novac and Spanoulis need to get in the game. How can they improve otherwise? And whatever problem JVG has with Bonzi, he needs to put it aside. Wells needs to see the court to get back into shape.
People, we played 9 players. Most coaches go with an 8- or 9-man rotation. Once we have the inevitable injury, true blowout, or blowout in reverse (e.g. some team, somewhere is going to beat us by 20+, hopefully not soon), you'll see the Novaks and Spanoulises come into the game.
To me, it actually looks like we go up by 20 points, then bench Yao Ming. The other team goes on a run with their bench players vs our bench players. Yao Ming comes back in, our guards make 3's and he goes to the line and we stop the bleeding and win.
I feel like Van Gundy likes to use good players too much till they wear out. I still remember Jim Jackson playing like 40 minutes per game during the 03-04 season, and Wesley 37 mins/game during 04-05, and T-Mac 40 mins/g last year when Yao was injured.
When Yao, McGrady or Battier sits, the team has really struggled. Look at their +/- numbers. They played heavy minutes becasue the bench players have not inspired confidence when they played.
If only JJ and Wesley counted as good players and not average over the hill vets, you may have a point.
if JVG would've put in billy and novak we could've lost the game. out rotation players found themselves on thier heals at the end of the game. had the rockets given up a few more baskets, or scored a few less, because of calling it a win too early, it would've been a loss.
Truth of the matter is we have a deep team. jho is playing well off the bench and with chuckie starting now that puts snyder comeing off the bench. Also luther is playing very well and he is doing the one thing novak does well plus adds other skills like being able to penetrate and run the offence. The only way v-span and novak see any time is if head or jho are slumping hard or are injured.
I wasn't able to watch the game so I may be wrong, but it looks like the Knicks played their starters more heavily than ours, Marbury 46min, Crawford 44min and Q.Rich 43min. That's probably one of the reasons why our starters have to play longer, just to match up better.
Novak & VSpan are rookies so they won't see significant PT with JVG unless there's a rash of injuries as was the case with Head last season. Besides Novak needs to learn to do something well besides shoot & VSpan needs to not be so helter skelter on the court. I agree with you that Bonzi needs to be playing. I wish I knew what the real story is here. As far as the "up by 20" thought goes, you stay with your normal rotation to keep your continuity, because the opposition is going to make at least 1 run at you. If you're up by 20 with 4 minutes to go, then you probably start resting the starters.
and another worthless response. if you don't want to join the convo, don't try to up your post count.
From Yahoo post game notes: He still had some left over after the game. After playing 38 minutes, Yao headed straight to the weight room in anticipation of Sunday's meeting with Shaquille O'Neal and the Miami Heat. "I've got another big guy coming," Yao said. "I want to be ready for him." Doesnt look to me Yao's about to pass out after the game. They are not made of glasses. 38 min/night is a regular workload for any NBA starter.
yours runs a close second to the thread. please feel free to up your own count, you are going to get more of these during the year.
when I say put in our bench players I mean for maybe 2 or 3 min's when we are up by 20 or more. That will give them some good experience on the floor; I dont think that vspan, snovak or jlIII would really stink it up that hard if they were put in for a few min's. I guess JVG isn't the type to try to develop players when given a chance.
Gundy is never fan of using real games to develop young players. Phil Jackson or Rudy T will, but not JVG. Our young puppies will get PT and prove themselves when we are short handed.
