RealGM

What's your take on rest for players this time of year?

We rested players down the stretch as did the Pistons. Billups or Rip came out and said that hurt them against Phili, once they got rhythm going again they were fine. I dont think anything similar can be said about us but who knows.

Now while Cle has had a few days off, we are coming off a game 7 and analysts seem to think that means Cle has the advantage? Personally, I feel like the playoffs are so dragged out that it does not matter. We just played a great game and now two days later we're supposed to be too tired to beat the Cavs? Sounds a bit outrageous to me.

Now the Pistons are up 2-0 and after sweeping the Magic last year they are on their way to doing it again before we even play a game.After what Billups/Hamilton had to say, do you think this will give our series winner an advantage or a disadvantage.


Around here resting players can be a touchy subject based off of the Giants/Pats result. Football is a completely different story, it is not valid in this argument.

I think playoff rest is overrated unless there is some key injury. I suspect most players would rather just keep playing every couple of days than get a week off or something. They never schedule back to backs in the playoffs so it shouldn't be an issue.

I'm not too concerned about going 7 games in terms of rest. Hell, that's why we limited the Big 3's mins during the season, so they could last well into the 'offs. That was the whole damn point.

Rest is a bigger issue when:
A) You are playing in a back-to-back (not an issue in the playoffs)
B) Players have nagging injuries they are trying to play through (as far as I know not an issue for us)
or
C) Players have hit the wall

(C) is the only one I'm worried about. 82 games is a long regular season, and not only rookies hit the wall. Frankly, none of our veterans have had long post-season runs recently, and are not used to playing 90+ games.

However, I believe we'll be fine. When you see veterans hit the wall, often it's a result of them having played basketball year round, usually because they played international ball during the summer. None of our players did. I think we'll be okay.

That being said, fewer playoff games is better, no question about that.

KG, Rondo, Perk All played under 30 minutes
Ray played exactly 30 minutes
PP played 33 minutes

I can't co-sign fatigue having a negative effect on the celtics in game 1 against the cavs