Yeah, maybe you missed the rest of the game where it got down to 5 with 21 seconds to go, and had a chance to be only 4 points with 15.9 seconds to go. You must have fallen alseep. It's only silly to you because we pulled it out and won. Some of you have a lack of vision and don't realize that just because we won THIS ONE, doesn't mean that we will will every game where it gets this close in the last few seconds.
Who was on the court for the Spurs game is irrelevant to the point I was making. Again, reading comprehension.
That would have been fine by me. But there's still a risk in your decision. In this case, you risk injuring a regular rotation player (both Lin and Garcia are kind indispensable right now, given Beverley's injury) in play against non-regulars. You're doing this because you don't want to risk losing the game. If one was to do a cost-benefit analysis, I don't think there's a clear direction to take here. If you lose the game, which was highly improbable, then that's a teaching moment for the non-regulars and you move on to the next game. If you play your regulars, not only is there still a chance that you lose the lead in the same way, you also risk injury to key players and deny playing time to guys who you may want to put into the rotation at some point.
Wins and Loses matter for this young team still. You don't plan for a future game by giving up a game that you can win RIGHT NOW. The risk analysis of them getting injured during an additional 2 minutes of play to secure the lead is ALSO VERY MINIMAL! But it's more likely that a couple of them with the bench players mixed in, probably secures the win with the lead in tact.
I'm sorry, but this is just very poor reasoning. Decision-making should only be assessed based on the information available at the time. Its irrelevant that one of Dallas's players got really hot and got the lead down to 5 with 21 seconds left. What matters is the probability of such a thing happening plus them actually pulling off the comeback.
Both the loss and the regulars getting injured are low probability. But the impact of an injury is potentially much more devastating than a single loss, so you should also consider that. And, again, you can still lose even with Lin and Garcia in the game (though, granted, it becomes even less likely).
I have been watching the NBA for over 30 years. This is not UN-NORMAL. When coaches think the game is in hand and typically sub their starters too soon, many of them end up putting them back in the game to secure the win because the other team doesn't just fold. This is a common trait of a mistake by some coaches that are made in the NBA. People have used Popovich and said that he would have done the same thing because he rests his starts a lot due to their age. On the contrary, I have seen Pop keep them in even when they have a comfortable lead, because he knows this very thing can and DOES happen in the NBA regular with the 3pt ball being so popular now.
True but copycatting is not as cool as being original. I mean you have tried to make your point, and most people disagree - it is your opinion and you are certainly entitled to it. Doesn't make it right - the only right is the result, and the result was - they won. DD
It has nothing to do with reading comprehension, you gave a hypothetical statement about our lead and our rotation players. I simply gave an analogy arguing your hypothesis. No matter who is on the court, you can never predict the outcome.
Agreed. But securing a win in any CURRENT GAME, is more important than trying to project minutes for the next few games....for a team like ours. It may be different for a team like the Spurs or Heat who have proven themselves and have RINGS already.
By OP's reasoning and logic starters should almost never be pulled as in the majority of games you won't have a 15 point lead with under 2 minutes to go in a majority of games. Stupid thread is stupid.
I wonder if the OP had some $$$$ on the Rocks minus some points.....and is pissed that he lost some mullah... DD
While this is true, you will have better results because of who is on the court, which is why you have starters and players that don't play that much...some are much better than others so a predicted better result is reasonable. The reason I said "reading comprehension", is that the point is that any game that is within 5 points with 21 seconds left, is a GAME THAT YOU CAN LOSE IN THE NBA. So my analogy with the Spurs games is that while it looked like there were clearly about to be the Champions last year, regardless of who was on the court, they lost that game and ultimately the Championship. So again, the point is about the CLOSENESS of the score with 21 seconds left, being a winnable game by either team. Only to point out that while although we won the game, we WERE in jeopardy of possibly losing that game when we probably should not have been if a different decision about the lineup had been made by the coach. The players, although they did play bad during that stretch, were also at a disadvantage because the coach didn't put them in a situation to be successful. It was not a good lineup and players were out of position playing with players they had never played with as an entire unit before. Basically McHale just threw some crap on the floor thinking that the game was over, and it wasn't.
It's stupid to think that if you don't have a lead that you sit your starters for rest because of upcoming games, when you haven't even won the game you are playing!
