I would like to be this to be serious discussion about: A) how you feel about resting starters in general? Like the Grizzlies did yesterday, for example. B) should the Rockets do it and how? I mean, do players have to earn rest? For example, D-Mo has been mentioned as a player who's maybe tired from playing center. D) do you see McHale actually doing it? In general I don't like it. I believe it's a coach his job to manage minutes and especially with a deep bench like ours, I don't ever see the need to rest players for a full game. I do think that for a guy like Harden, it is smart to play him less minutes in games the other 8-9 guys should be able to handle. They could learn from playing without him and McHale would actually learn from winning a game without Harden saving his behind. This brings me to the next point about earning rest. I believe if the Rockets do it, it should be players who've earned it. D-Mo has not earned it, TJ is fresh and Beverley is never tired. Giving Harden and maybe Ariza rest in the way I just described, would be ideal. Just against some minor competition and on back-to-backs. I could see McHale limiting minutes late in the season, but actually resting starters for a whole game, hell no. It's not like they are laying brick for a whole day, it's just playing basketball (paraphrasing) :grin:
if we start keeping harden + other starters out of games, we're pretty much starting the 1st round in memphis as the 7th seed..
How about not playing Harden 34 mins in a blowout loss from beginning to end on the 2nd night of a b2b. Let's just start with the basic stuff
Dwight Howard has been getting plenty of rest. His status means less rest opportunities for everyone else. In the West, being rested for the playoffs could easily mean having to go through all of the top 3 seeds to reach the Finals. So I don't really blame the org or the coach for how things have played out.
I wonder how much sitting a game is really necessary. I mean, it's only a game. The whole team just had 3 days off, and they come off of those days of rest looking like crap.
I don't think they looked like crap against Portland. It was a winnable game, but they didn't get blown out. They just came up short because of poor free throw shooting and rebounding. Not exactly a new trend with this ballclub. Utah was a bad loss, but this is again a trend with the Rockets lately on B2Bs on the road. They did it against Detroit and the Clippers last month. They don't have energy in these games with quick turnarounds. And last night was especially tough given the 8PM tipoff following a 9:30PM tipoff the night before. As for the issue of resting players, I don't have a problem with it in theory. The concern however is that the Rockets haven't exactly locked down home court advantage yet, so they don't have the luxury of giving away games. And going forward, I don't know if it'll even be necessary to rest players since we don't have many B2Bs left. We've got 3 of them. 3/29 at Washington and 3/30 at Toronto, 4/1 vs. Sactown and 4/2 at Dallas(that'll be a 4 games in 5 night stretch), 4/12 vs. New Orleans and 4/13 at Charlotte. The good news is Dwight should be in uniform for all of those games.
I was not trying to imply they lost because they were tired in either game on this back-to-back. Just saw that Memphis rested their starters and with McHale playing short rotations, it would be an interesting discussion. I agree we cannot afford the luxury and really feel McHale needs to find a way to balance minutes better. Thanks for pointing out that we do tend to lose on the 2nd night of back-to-backs, though not sure that was because of being tired: playing many minutes night before, short rotation, all very probable.
Not sure we can rest anybody because we have to implement Dwight in the lineup when he comes back so we need him playing with the starters but if there is an opportunity to rest the starters I would be fine with it. Harden, Ariza, and Dmo need the most rest imo.
Unless Dallas catches fire to get to the 5 seed, the Rockets are going to be faced with a bad matchup. If it means the players are well rested and we get Howard back for the playoffs, starting in Memphis doesn't give me any more concern than starting at home against Portland, Clippers, or Spurs. With a full squad, I would rather go against Memphis anyway. Our depth gives them issues, they are not a quick strike scoring team , and ZBo is not quite the caliber of Aldridge/Griffin/Duncan. It's going to be a grind no matter what and I don't see us favored over many teams so might as well rest up and give yourself the best chance to have the energy required to win.
I think they were tired last night. We've seen it before. When they have to go down to the wire against an opponent(the OT win at Denver, the win at Boston, the 2nd win at Phoenix) with a game the next night, that 2nd game winds up being a loss and it's always because they look like they're out of gas. And let's not forget aside from the quick turnaround last night, they were going up against a red hot Jazz team. 9-2 since the All-Star Break with some quality wins(including at Memphis) is nothing to scoff at.
w/ matthews out for POR, griffin needing to work his way in for LAC, and DAL playing like crap….was just giving MEM benefit of the doubt..
They should rest D-Mo right away, for the next 5 games. Give KJ 5-6 minutes a game to give Harden a breather.
A) Resting players during the regular season is a smart strategy considering the pace of NBA games these days coupled with the long, grueling 82 game regular season; factor in a shallow rotation, and the strategy of resting key players becomes even more beneficial, IMHO. B) The Rockets should absolutely do it. Our players outside of T.Jones and Brewer have looked completely gassed and are not playing at the same level they were playing at just a few weeks ago. I can't say for sure that fatigue is the problem, but I don't believe that players just suddenly turn to crap overnight for no reason. C) I couldn't agree more D) No way does McHale do it. Never in a million years... he would just say the guys just need to "play harder", then sit by and watch another late season collapse as the team limps into the playoffs while shrugging his shoulders saying "I don't know what to do".
I'd follow Pop's lead of not giving anyone heavy minutes. For the whole season, I'd like to see averages closer to 30 min/game than 40. You get the double benefit of less mileage on the starters and more experience for the backups. I wouldn't pull them out of games altogether though. That's bad customer service. If I really wanted to pull them out of games though, I'd have the decency to make up an injury to justify it. When a fan drives from Waco to Dallas just because he wants to see Harden play but Harden is out injured, the fan will be disappointed; but if he's out 'resting' the fan would be pissed.
