I think the trend of pulling away late has a ton to do with our ridiculous depth this year. Brooks and Barry come in fresh, and Brooks just burns by everyone else. In addition, guys like Scola and Landry and Hayes can go all out knowing they don't have to pace themselves over the course of a game. Yao is still playing high minutes, but remember all three of the Boston guys averaged like 38-42 minutes a game for the first third of last season before they established a reputation of dominance. Once that was in place, they started taking it easy, missing games here and there, and I expect us to do the same with Yao. We need to go full bore right here to prove to the rest of the league that we are real, but once the dog days hit (January or so), we can give our starters breathers game by game and let our depth handle the rest.
