Why are conference finalists using 10-man lineups?

[In The City]

The Raptors were basically playing every other day in the bubble. We were an older team than Boston and we just ran out of juice. Lowry and Gasol are both in their mid-30s. Ibaka didn't even play in the 2nd half of G7. Thomas and Ibaka were key in giving the Raps a 25-22 lead when they were down 22-11. What did Nurse do to reward them? He replaced Thomas and Ibaka with Siakam and Gasol. Thomas never saw the floor again. Such disrespect. Herro on the Heat gets the respect Davis should have gotten. He and Davis made All Rookie 2nd team. Nurse was **** his pants in G7 and choked . Love him, but he did choke esp. with the non-time out call at the end. Oh well....

[Basketball_Jones]

The Raptors were basically playing every other day in the bubble. We were an older team than Boston and we just ran out of juice. Lowry and Gasol are both in their mid-30s. Ibaka didn't even play in the 2nd half of G7. Thomas and Ibaka were key in giving the Raps a 25-22 lead when they were down 22-11. What did Nurse do to reward them? He replaced Thomas and Ibaka with Siakam and Gasol. Thomas never saw the floor again. Such disrespect. Herro on the Heat gets the respect Davis should have gotten. He and Davis made All Rookie 2nd team. Nurse was **** his pants in G7 and choked . Love him, but he did choke esp. with the non-time out call at the end. Oh well....

He just did a ride or die with his top vets. In a game 7 I can’t blame him. But to me it was clear the writing was on the wall for Gasol and Siakam, neither were ever going to get it going. Ibaka should have played more, Siakam a bit less, otherwise I can’t complain much with rotations. Siakam was just veeeeeeery bad on offense, u can’t overcome that even with top defense.

[ratul]

10 man rotation for the celts last night. Eight for the heat. Seems like these guys are less gassed than our guys. I wonder who is responsible for our bench?

[HiJiNX]

One thing I’ve learned in sports is it doesn’t matter how good your guys are, if they’re tired at the end of the game you’re losing 9/10 times. There’s no reason Matt Thomas shouldn’t have gotten more minutes since our offence improved every time he was on the court. Gasol should have played less. Boucher, who when given minutes always plays well regardless of competition, should have gotten more run in games 1 and 5 as things got out of hand. I woulda tried the TD/RHJ/Boucher trio in those games in fact since their energy and chaos has brought us back into many games. It just felt like a weird series.

[Mikistan]

The Raptors were basically playing every other day in the bubble. We were an older team than Boston and we just ran out of juice. Lowry and Gasol are both in their mid-30s. Ibaka didn't even play in the 2nd half of G7. Thomas and Ibaka were key in giving the Raps a 25-22 lead when they were down 22-11. What did Nurse do to reward them? He replaced Thomas and Ibaka with Siakam and Gasol. Thomas never saw the floor again. Such disrespect. Herro on the Heat gets the respect Davis should have gotten. He and Davis made All Rookie 2nd team. Nurse was **** his pants in G7 and choked . Love him, but he did choke esp. with the non-time out call at the end. Oh well....

He just did a ride or die with his top vets. In a game 7 I can’t blame him. But to me it was clear the writing was on the wall for Gasol and Siakam, neither were ever going to get it going. Ibaka should have played more, Siakam a bit less, otherwise I can’t complain much with rotations. Siakam was just veeeeeeery bad on offense, u can’t overcome that even with top defense.

It was obvious from game 5 that Gasol was Don, Gasol gave up like 8 points in the 2nd half alone in game 7,he never should have sniffed 20 mins in game 7

[Econ101]

Hindsight is 20/20, but the argument is: would 5 more minutes of Matt Thomas/Norm Powell be better than minutes 42-47 of FVV/Siakam? I would say yes, especially with the scrambling defense they play. Nurse could have gone zone with Thomas to cover his deficiencies on D. And his presence on offense spaces the floor.

Ironically, "keeping your starters fresh for end of game" is what got the Bucks/Budenholzer in trouble. So there's no magic bullet.

[aminiaturebuddha]

I think it really had to do with that matchup against Boston more than anything. The Celtics also shortened their rotation and played their key guys major minutes. What it came down to is that with two coaches in Nurse and Stevens who can make great adjustments, it was very hard to try to get any minutes for players who were one-dimensional on either end of the floor.

Just take a look at what happened when Stevens tried to play Kanter for a few minutes a couple of games into the series. the Raptors attacked him relentlessly on the defensive end and forced Stevens to bench him again fairly quickly.

As much as Thomas gave a valiant effort on the defensive end, the Celtics were targeting him every time he was on the floor. Conversely, on the offensive end, we saw how much the Celtics started to sag off on Gasol as the series went on, making life more difficult for Pascal and Norm and others. They would have completely ignored RHJ. The only other legitimate options were Davis and Boucher, who both had stretches in the bubble where they were lost on defence or out of sync with the team concept.

[Johnny Bball]

Saying we lost because we were tired is revising history.

And our bench sucked. Whatever they were good before, just lost it in the bubble.

[douggood]

cletics played 10 yesterday, but really just 8 players
miami played 8 players, but really just 7 players.

[douggood]

10 man rotation for the celts last night. Eight for the heat. Seems like these guys are less gassed than our guys. I wonder who is responsible for our bench?

cletics played 10 yesterday, but really just 8 players, ojele 4 min, williams 1 min

and with the 8 players, it will still skewed toward the top 6 in minutes played.
tatum, brown, smart, walker, hayward thies for 30-40 min
wanamaker and williams off the bench for 10ish minutes

miami played 8 players, but really just 7 players. hill 4 min.

nunn, olynyk, leynord, jones jr who were all regular seeason roation players DNP.

[Masai4PM]

If Siakam played even 50% of his normal level, the strategy would've worked.

It's not fair to put the loss on Nurse, it was Siakam that cost us the series.

[team edward]

I was really quite surprised that we shortened our bench to the degree we did - and yes, in game 7 we simply didn't have the gas in the tank to do that Raptors thing and will ourselves out of a huge hole ... again.

I think this is probably the one area that Nick needs to check himself on. There had to be room for Terrence Davis to get on the court. Matt Thomas was a great piece for a short stretch - there had to be another 3 minutes he could have been used better.

Overall I feel like our rotations reflected our play - the team's organizing principle seemed to be not to lose their championship . . . and we didn't have the roster to get away with that. We didn't provide any room whatsoever to have a little known player be a breakout piece, unless you count OG.

I think the very best rotation managers find a way to add an x-factor.

I haven't been watching consistently since the Raptors have been out - are there non top-7 guys making positive impact? Or is it all managing minutes?

nurse have them all a chance to be X factors.

Davis was a walking turnover and was missing shots. He had a chance, nurse decided he couldn’t play him and i think it was a good call.

Boucher simply isn’t trustworthy. He’s never met a shot he didn’t like and that series wasn’t the time for growing pains. Which is too bad because he can be disruptive defensively.

Thomas I’ll give you - wasn’t really a net negative and forced Celtics to adjust their defence, so at least he’s disruptive to a certain degree even if just as a decoy. So maybe nurse could have gone there more to save a few minutes for Kyle or Fred.

As far as “rolling the dice” on something, the best die to roll every time was on Gasol finally hitting a shot or pascal finally finding a groove. It just didn’t pan out.

[ItsDanger]

Nick Thibodeau burned these guys out. You can't go with a 7 man rotation. He was always looking for that "eighth man" during the regular season and it was McCaw. He had no plan B after his injury. ie. Nurse didn't trust the other guys on defense.

[HeadtopChunes]

Nick might have done it too fast but Miami and Boston are doing the same thing now.

Boston played 8 guys more than 5 minutes yesterday, Miami played 7.

I think it comes down to trust, especially defensively and Nick just didn't trust anyone. Particularly on Defense, Nick has produced to all-time level defenses these last 2 seasons but its because of things like this. With Hindsight, he probably should have played Norm and Matt more.

Terence, he did give a chance too but he was awful defensively and Nurse didn't trust him again

Trusting decision making is also a big one, its why Nunn has fallen out of the Heat rotation, why Stevens doesn't trust Robert Williams, why Nurse didn't go all-in on Serge or give Terence and Norm bigger leashes.

Maybe coaches have to be willing to risk more? But its also easy to say that after losing, we could have won G7 with some shooting variance, and would the criticism still be the same?

[kleatius_01]

A lot of people here need to accept that we lost because Boston is a slightly better team and we lost a few 50/50 plays at the end. We have a good team that was never going to win it all unless multiple opponents had injuries or huge slumps at the right time. 5 more minutes of Matt Thomas wouldn't have changed that. Hopefully next year we add some new pieces, our young guys step up and Siakam gets back on track.

[LBJKB24MJ23]

Nick might have done it too fast but Miami and Boston are doing the same thing now.

Boston played 8 guys more than 5 minutes yesterday, Miami played 7.

I think it comes down to trust, especially defensively and Nick just didn't trust anyone. Particularly on Defense, Nick has produced to all-time level defenses these last 2 seasons but its because of things like this. With Hindsight, he probably should have played Norm and Matt more.

Terence, he did give a chance too but he was awful defensively and Nurse didn't trust him again

Trusting decision making is also a big one, its why Nunn has fallen out of the Heat rotation, why Stevens doesn't trust Robert Williams, why Nurse didn't go all-in on Serge or give Terence and Norm bigger leashes.

Maybe coaches have to be willing to risk more? But its also easy to say that after losing, we could have won G7 with some shooting variance, and would the criticism still be the same?

depends on what the other team does. pretty sure Stevens played his bench sparingly because Nurse played his bench sparingly (or vice versa)

thats just the way games are sometimes.

I mean Nurse has a lot to learn still has a head coach in his 2nd year in the NBA.

[HeadtopChunes]

Nick might have done it too fast but Miami and Boston are doing the same thing now.

Boston played 8 guys more than 5 minutes yesterday, Miami played 7.

I think it comes down to trust, especially defensively and Nick just didn't trust anyone. Particularly on Defense, Nick has produced to all-time level defenses these last 2 seasons but its because of things like this. With Hindsight, he probably should have played Norm and Matt more.

Terence, he did give a chance too but he was awful defensively and Nurse didn't trust him again

Trusting decision making is also a big one, its why Nunn has fallen out of the Heat rotation, why Stevens doesn't trust Robert Williams, why Nurse didn't go all-in on Serge or give Terence and Norm bigger leashes.

Maybe coaches have to be willing to risk more? But its also easy to say that after losing, we could have won G7 with some shooting variance, and would the criticism still be the same?

depends on what the other team does. pretty sure Stevens played his bench sparingly because Nurse played his bench sparingly (or vice versa)

thats just the way games are sometimes.

I mean Nurse has a lot to learn still has a head coach in his 2nd year in the NBA.

Yeah Nurse will continue growing too, I'm very happy with him as our long term guy, think the question is more philosophical than a critique on Nurse

Its also harder when your bench just isn't playing well, for example if Norman Powell is being outplayed by Brad Wannamaker how much can you trust him before you have to pull the plug?

These aren't easy decisions and like I said earlier much easier to criticize in our positions with the benefit of hindsight.

[LBJKB24MJ23]

Nick might have done it too fast but Miami and Boston are doing the same thing now.

Boston played 8 guys more than 5 minutes yesterday, Miami played 7.

I think it comes down to trust, especially defensively and Nick just didn't trust anyone. Particularly on Defense, Nick has produced to all-time level defenses these last 2 seasons but its because of things like this. With Hindsight, he probably should have played Norm and Matt more.

Terence, he did give a chance too but he was awful defensively and Nurse didn't trust him again

Trusting decision making is also a big one, its why Nunn has fallen out of the Heat rotation, why Stevens doesn't trust Robert Williams, why Nurse didn't go all-in on Serge or give Terence and Norm bigger leashes.

Maybe coaches have to be willing to risk more? But its also easy to say that after losing, we could have won G7 with some shooting variance, and would the criticism still be the same?

depends on what the other team does. pretty sure Stevens played his bench sparingly because Nurse played his bench sparingly (or vice versa)

thats just the way games are sometimes.

I mean Nurse has a lot to learn still has a head coach in his 2nd year in the NBA.

Yeah Nurse will continue growing too, I'm very happy with him as our long term guy, think the question is more philosophical than a critique on Nurse

Its also harder when your bench just isn't playing well, for example if Norman Powell is being outplayed by Brad Wannamaker how much can you trust him before you have to pull the plug?

These aren't easy decisions and like I said earlier much easier to criticize in our positions with the benefit of hindsight.

Exactly.

[Johnny Bball]

Nick Thibodeau burned these guys out. You can't go with a 7 man rotation. He was always looking for that "eighth man" during the regular season and it was McCaw. He had no plan B after his injury. ie. Nurse didn't trust the other guys on defense.

Do you even know that it wasn’t minutes per game that injured Thibodeau players? That’s ridiculous. And 7 men rotations happen all the time.

[sidsid]

Nick Thibodeau burned these guys out. You can't go with a 7 man rotation. He was always looking for that "eighth man" during the regular season and it was McCaw. He had no plan B after his injury. ie. Nurse didn't trust the other guys on defense.

A key point here is that the regular season sets up your options in the playoffs.

You can criticize little tactical changes here and there in a playoff series, but it's a waste of time to fault that if you're looking for a deeper trend. Nurse worked with and leaned on what he built in the regular season.

Our offense was heavily dependent on the 2 short pg guard play and Siakam iso. Along with some of the highest minutes per in the league. The bench was heavily dependent on tough Norm hero ball and Ibaka.

Terence Davis wasn't given the long leash to work through the growing pains, even though he's likely the only other player on the bench with the talent to raise it's ceiling. We gave that time to McCaw.

We lived and died with the foundation Nurse built. There wasn't a lot of wiggle room to adapt after the Fred and Siakam pillars came down. The issue was strategy, not tactics.