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We have no where to go. We wont move up or down. With 5 games to play. Instead of focusing on winning 50 games, shouldn't we focus on improving our bench.

With our starters not playing for anything, they have no ambition to want to compete as it showed last night against the Knicks. I personally could care less if we won 50 or 53 just so we could show the improvement from last year. We all know we are a better team from last year. Does it not make sense to play our bench with ton of minutes to build confidence and get them in some kind of a rythm going into the playoffs. Is clearly shows that even airPat can benefit from playing times. Im not saying not to start with our starters, but this is a perfect time to limit all of our starters minutes to give them the much needed rest and prevent injuries. Dwight is clearly tired and Grotat could surly use minutes.

Any thoughts?

yes...

50 wins was I believe a goal of Stan's, so yes it is important (Plus, we play 3 games at home and I don't care if we have the famous all white lineup on the court, we need to win two of them since we are playing the Bulls, T-Wolves, and Wiz last game of the season).

like svg said, they get there rest... rest in between games... if svg were to cut dwights mins by 8 mins a game what does that actually do for dwight???... so he would play 40 less minutes in the next two weeks? does that make some kind of dramatic change for dwight... now if he rest them from heavy practices for the next two weeks youre looking at a way better return on youre resting of them... it just seems better to get on a good roll these last few games going into the playoffs rather than get 50 more mins of rest

yes only because if we dont hit 50 we'll be slumping when the playoffs come around. The number to me isnt as important as the team entering the playoffs with momentum.

50 is a milestone. 50 wins is, by anyone's account, a good regular season, and it's a good recruiter for potential free agents.

MagicalMan wrote:yes only because if we dont hit 50 we'll be slumping when the playoffs come around. The number to me isnt as important as the team entering the playoffs with momentum.

Agree with this.

Also this is a completely attainable and a reasonable goal that was set for the team. If we don't hit it there's no acceptable excuse as to why we didn't (ie: core player missing a major amount of games).

It's not that important, but in free agency we might be able to pick up a few FA that say they only want to go to a 50+ win team and have a chance to compete.

Agree with the point about rest in between games. Our light schedule over the last weeks of the season have given us the luxury of not cutting our starter's minutes too much in games. I think it hurts to take our core guys out of their game routines when they need to be getting everything sharp as possible for the playoffs.

That said, we should also be looking to sharpen our bench, so maybe an extra 2-4 minutes for our bench regardless of the score would be wise in our current situation.

50 wins would be a psychological victory. No one gets a free ham or anything if we hit it, but its still a huge landmark. The fact that we have already won our division is a clear sign that we have improved from last year, that and actually watching the games this season. We are clearly better, but if we want to be mentioned with the big dogs, then we need to hit that 50 win mark. Of course, winning in the playoffs would do it too.

winning 50 games is very important if we are going to continue to play dwight, hedo, and rashard, major minutes. Otherwise we are losing because we don't care and think playing like crap doesn't mater anymore.

However, winning in the playoffs is the most important.

Maybe to Stan and the team it is important. But to me as a fan I could care less. 3rd is already locked up, I think its time for Stan to find out and see exactly what his bench players can do.

It's always important.

Yeah, 50 wins are important...that's the measuring stick for the league's best teams. That's where we want to be, and belong so yeah we need to grab two more wins.

Keep things as is.

Playing the bench for 5 games won't make any difference in their development.

Momentum.

craig01 wrote:Keep things as is.

Playing the bench for 5 games won't make any difference in their development.

Momentum.

Huge for the playoffs

yes

Gotta win 50! Gotta play the bench too though. I think any team with Garrity in their rotation is joke, so we need to see if Augie or Gortat can play those min behind Lewis. Not to mention working JJ into things, sometimes a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush, or whatever that saying is.

eyriq wrote:Gotta win 50! Gotta play the bench too though. I think any team with Garrity in their rotation is joke, so we need to see if Augie or Gortat can play those min behind Lewis. Not to mention working JJ into things, sometimes a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush, or whatever that saying is.

weirdest non b ball quote on real gm ever.... but yeah i like youre points... i said the same thing during the game yesterday about garrity... no team is to be elite if he plays