It's just like any other game; however, McHale likes to lock in a playoff rotation, which I think is stupid, especially when you have volatile players like JSmith. But now we're stuck with him playing 30mins a game.
You select 12 guys for the entire playoffs. No inactive or injury list players. 12 guys. Now with D-Mo gone, Capela will definitely be in the 12. 1 Terry 2 Harden 3 Ariza 4 Jones 5 Howard 6 Prigioni 7 Brewer 8 Papanikalou 9 Josh Smith 10 Dorsey 11 Nick Johnson 12 Clint Capela outside looking in: McDaniels. Big man rotation will be TJ-Howard-Smith. 4th adder will be Dorsey at the 5 or Ariza at the 4 with Brewer or Pap at the 3 in a small ball scenario. Realistically McHale would only play an 8-9 man rotation anyways. As the Duke Champions said "Eight is enough" So either TJ or D-Mo was going to get significantly less minutes with a smaller playoff rotation. Now we know it's D-Mo out, TJ in. It sucks really really bad, but it is not the end of the world. We still have a squad we can believe in. Howard is playing way above the rim since his return. TJ is out of control amazing right now. And we have Josh. It's going to be okay.
so POP is looking smart resting his Vets all season long...the Spurs go into the playoffs pretty much healthy and rested. Not saying McHale ran our guys into the ground and is the reason for all of these injuries, but at the end of the day, we are the most injury riddled team of the NBA and the Spurs get to waltz into the playoffs.
I'm glad all this Jones vs Motiejunas crap is done for now. Jones has another chance to prove himself when it gets real. Hopefully Motiejunas can have that chance one day.
It sucks, but that's how it goes. OKC may miss the playoffs thanks to injuries. The Mavs have a banged up Rondo and Parsons has an injured knee. The Spurs have Parker with a sore Achilles and Splitter with a sore calf. The Grizzlies are missing Tony Allen. The Blazers lost Matthews for the season and Wright for 4-6 weeks. And the Cavs lost Varejao for the year. The Rockets have been snakebit worse than any other team not named the Thunder. But what else can they do but soldier on like they've done all year?
Our med staff needs to be fired. Not sure how u go from out 2 weeks - soreness- to out for the year? While this is certainly not good - this is not the end of the world. It's not like he was a beastly low post scorer. He was routinely bullied out of position which forced some real long hook-prayers. Terrible rebounder to boot. This could help make us stronger with other players picking up the slack. I'm not ready to say we are one and done like some alarmists here are saying. Relax. Go rockets
Conspiracy hat on: This is a good play by Morey to further James Harden's candidacy for MVP. First the memorabilia sent to media now this. Voters have got going for Harden now. Spoiler I kid folks. Seriously this will be a huge loss for the playoffs. Really makes my stomach churn b4 playoff starts
lol...not happening. In fact, lets PRAY Dwight goes along with the PNR with Harden and allows the game to flow through harden without forcing into the post. Also Jones needs to just crash the boards and finish--we don't need him or Dwight posting up. The only one that might be able to do some posting up is Smith and even there the Rockets should use it sparingly unless he just catches on fire.
