When we are finally back to full strength with Faried, House (March 24th) and Shump, we can finally rest up for the playoffs, too. As of now, Paul can't rest in b2b Harden has to play 44 minutes to beat MIA PJ has played the 4th most minutes in the entire NBA So, you just want to play CP3 on B2Bs, too. We have 3 more B2Bs. We should rest Paul on b2b against the Hornets (next week), Hawks or MEM (mid month), and Kings (on April 2nd). Then we alternate Harden/Paul rest for Knicks and PHX last week Apr 5th and 7th (maybe Paul both games), in case we need to beat OKC on last game of the year. keep your eye on the ball, cfnet, we need to give Harden, Paul and PJ some serious rest. We need Faried, House and Shump for that.
To be honest, I'm not that fussed about CP3. He's only played exactly half a season thus far, and he was taking it lightly on defense for a big chunk of those. Right now he still seems like he's getting to peak fitness/form. It would be awesome if he skips all of those B2B's but I would advise against a significant minutes restriction. With Harden I WISH he would sit out those 3 B2B's. He won't. I wish they would force a minutes restriction. They won't. I wish he would sit out 145 minutes, I don't care how they divide it. But it just won't happen. He wants to play, and the team wants to milk the asset while having the perfect excuse of "oh he would never let us". Come on. This is the 2nd greatest asset in team history and a rare shot at the title. Grow a pair and he will thank you for it later. With Tucker, he will be fine. I am very concerned about him, but I believe his minutes will drop. Faried/Clark/Nene have played well and Tucker looked better when he got a bit more rest. MDA seems to be cool with those backups. I think they will take care of it.
I like the rest of your post, but I don't get the Paul stuff at all. I don't care how many games he missed recovering from injury, he tweaked himself in Nov (after a summer of rest), which led to serious injury on a b2b in Dec....and was useless in our last B2B against MIA, forcing Harden to play 44 minutes to save us. From my seats, Paul's body takes longer to recover after games. And missing a month doesn't improve recovery time. Doesn't work that way. If we play him every game the rest of the year, we are insane. Him missing a month doesn't mean we shouldn't rest him on b2bs (CHO, ATL, SAC), nor last week v NYK and PHX.
I was hoping to get here before someone made this about House, or barring that before someone said "that's what she said", but both those things already happened.
Play at the 4 on teams where we can abuse them on rebounds (like the Warriors). Otherwise, come off the bench as a smallball center. I hope he's still been working on his 3. They're going to need to be consistent in the playoffs.
Look, I'm not a "win at all costs" guy. But to some extent, we have lost the opportunity to initiate an aggressive resting policy just because he missed so much time already. We should do something with Paul, but I'm not sure it's resting him on all 3 B2B's both because of our position and the best recovery strategy. He's not in peak form/fitness right now. The load management is good and some heightened resistance is good too. We have to find a balance so that we neither have to take unnecessary risks, but also so that he doesn't stroll into the playoffs still in preseason-ish form. From a general injury perspective, I don't agree missing a month doesn't improve recovery time. I think injuries have two components: avoidable and unavoidable. I'm sure everyone agrees he could get injured in the first minute of a game after 3 days rest. That stuff we can't avoid. So we're talking about the avoidable stuff here and we have to acknowledge the line between those 2 things is not so clear. Missing a month towards the end of a long career does help. It's not going to solve everything, but it is going to help to an extent that we don't have to agree on. It's not everything, but it's not nothing. Based on that general injury theory, I think we shouldn't rest him nor should we play him aggressively. I think we should start ramping him up carefully and slowly and in a week or two, he should be able to handle 1 or 2 back to backs. We won't have B2B's in the playoffs, but it will be an indication that his physical fitness is reaching a good peak. We have to be sure that he can handle a playoff series with ease, rather than cutting it. Too much rest can be a problem too. The body gets lazy I think. That's why I don't want Harden missing the last 2 games and going into the playoffs cold. The whole thing is tricky and I'm no expert. In any case I think we're on the same page that the Rockets have to pick their poison here.
