ClutchFans Game Thread: Rockets @ Lakers 3/31/2025

When Fred and Jalen played like shiit, sticking to play 8 men instead of 9 or 10 is ****ing stupid.

 

for me it's about impact to winning / beating opponents / outscoring opponents

https://www.nba.com/stats/players/a...0&StarterBench=Starters&dir=A&sort=NET_RATING

For Games Started, Minimum 30 games, Minimum 30 Minutes, Sorted by Net Rating

OKC has 2 in the top 5

CLE has 3 in the top 6

BOS has 4 in the top 15

HOU has 6 in the top 50
#17 Alpi
#19 FVV
#24 Amen
#35 DB
#38 JSJ
#49 JG

 

This game was an outlier. 2 bench players hitting 12 threes at 50% clip ain't going to happen often. That being said, if this was a playoff series. You don't want to give those bench players too much confidence.

 

That call was inexcusable.

 

And it doesn’t have to be long minutes. If Holiday makes 2 threes we win the game.

 

Curry with 50+10
Jokic with 60+10+10
Fred with shooting 14% and Jalen with 9 pts.

We need to play better. Nuggets and Warriors start to play like playoffs.

 

Perhaps I missed it, what was your explanation? That we were on back to backs and they could be tired? My retort is that you need continuity in the playoffs. You need a rotation of your best guys playing consistent minutes together. If you add to that rotation, you just reduce minutes of others.


Now is not the time to reduce the minutes on any main rotation players, right before the playoffs. This isn’t the time to get guys experience. It’s time to treat every game as if it is the playoffs where almost every team and coach in the history of the league has cut their rotations to a max of 9.
That isn’t the same as “because everyone else does,” it’s a recognition that nba coaches don’t see value in expansive playoff rotations. Clearly there is a reason for that.

 

Because he doesn’t want to bother giving minutes to guys who won’t be in the playoff rotation. And he saw more value in giving more minutes to the guys who will ACTUALLY play in the playoffs. It’s also very likely he simply doesn’t trust Cam or Shep at this point. This “rotation” issue always comes up near the end of the season, so I don’t understand why people are questioning it like it’s some dumb newbie coach move. It’s clearly the way that almost every coach feels when it comes to the end of the season and playoff run. You cut your rotations to only those deserving.