rajajackal wrote:spree8 wrote:rajajackal wrote:depending on josh hart was a problem with thibs creativity/tactics, as i mentioned. the star players playing minutes was not the issue. they ended the season competing on the court, not on the injury list. there are a number of issues with thibs as a coach which is why i agree with the pivot to a new one. but minutes police analysis has always been lazy and mostly parroting media narratives to me. no offense to you personally my brother in spree
All good, but what do you think is lazy about it? I thought it was common sense… the other top teams in the league (OKC, Indy, Celts, Cavs) played their best players: SGA (34mpg), JDub (32), Hali (33), Siakam (33), Turner (30), Donovan (31), Garland (30), Mobley (30), Tatum (36), Jaylen (34), White (34)… everyone else on those teams was below 30mpg.
Then you got us playing all 5 starters 38-35 mpg. Over 82 games plus the playoffs, that’s an insane amount of additional miles. The extra fatigue it causes come the playoffs is a real thing. What Josh Hart is saying there is he ran out of gas leading the league in mpg… add that to Mikal saying the same thing… nobody else around the league seems to be complaining about this.
How much more evidence do you really need to not dismiss it?
josh hart leading the league in mpg is a tactical issue for me more than it is about wearing and tearing the guys you should actually be riding. wouldn't we all agree hart was not the right starter at sg and that relying on him for so many in-game minutes hurt our offense? i've said it before but i'll clarify - i'm not defending thibs as an in-game manager. i think he's an elite practice and culture coach and a poor tactician in the modern nba. but the minutes police philosophy is that thibs wears and tears his guys into oblivion. he is obviously guilty of riding players more than many modern coaches, but i don't think that's why we lost. i think we lost because he wasn't flexible or creative about the gameplan and we became easy to handle for opposing tacticians. that's all i'm saying
I’m not saying it’s the sole reason we lost, there’s a lot of contributing factors… but that is certainly one of them. I would say in the PO game threads that these guys look exhausted and Thibs’ defenders would deny it and laugh… well, guess the minutes police got the last laugh lol.
But seriously, yes, his game planning (or lack there of), poor strategy, inability to adjust or taking 100 games to make adjustments, are also contributing factors.
The decisive reason for the loss was game 1 in the ECF… letting Nesmith drop 100 threes in the final few minutes without any defensive adjustment to being killed on basic screens. No switching no nothing… just wide open 3’s.
After that demoralizing loss, along with the mental and physical fatigue, I think it was insurmountable honestly. Sure we pulled out a couple wins, but you could see these dudes were running on fumes and just done.
You also gotta take into account that all minutes are not equal. Like Mikal for example… his minutes aren’t the same as someone who wasn’t hit by the amount of screens he was (he led the league) in the same amount of mpg. Same for a guy like KAT.. someone like Derrick White playing similar mins isn’t the same because he’s a big with bad knees and weighs 250 lbs. OG is also injury prone, so his 37 mpg aren’t the same as someone smaller and less injury prone. There’s so many things to take into consideration..
* We have a Brunson Burner™ * 
RIP mags
