GT: CLE @ WAS -- 3/13/2008

[LyricalRico]

Very nice statement game. I really hope we can catch Toronto so that we can put Cleveland out in the first round.

I agree with the concern over Caron's minutes and it sounds like Grunfeld does too. Comparing that to not playing Haywood doesn't really fly.

[dobrojim]

If Caron's OK, what's the issue? If he's not OK, he should not
of played at all. He's obviously OK. Welcome back Tough Juice
and Happy belated birthday.

Gil, you're next!

EConf, be afraid, be very afraid.

[closg00]

My heart sunk when LeBron threw up the three on the buzzer.
>snip<

With all the jawing back and forth with DS, Bron wanted so badly to sink a game winner with Gilbert looking on, I'm so glad it didn't happen.
Coach Brown was upset at all he 3pt hoisting the Cavs were doing, and Brons 3pointer is not what he wanted. Brons big ego got in the way to our benefit.

[dobrojim]

-= original quote snipped =-



With all the jawing back and forth with DS, Bron wanted so badly to sink a game winner with Gilbert looking on, I'm so glad it didn't happen.
Coach Brown was upset at all he 3pt hoisting the Cavs were doing, and Brons 3pointer is not what he wanted. Brons big ego got in the way to our benefit.

If Brown was upset with their 3s, he's maybe as bad as some on
the Cavs board would say. Their 3 pt shooting was the thing that
kept them in the game most of the night.

[jimij]

-= original quote snipped =-



With all the jawing back and forth with DS, Bron wanted so badly to sink a game winner with Gilbert looking on, I'm so glad it didn't happen.
Coach Brown was upset at all he 3pt hoisting the Cavs were doing, and Brons 3pointer is not what he wanted. Brons big ego got in the way to our benefit.

I think he went for the 3 because he was afraid to go to the charity stripe and have to shoot free throws with Gilbert looking on.

[miller31time]

I'm trying to think back to last year's playoffs.

Who was our designated "LeBron-stopper"? I remember putting Arvis on him for stretches, but was it Stevenson who got the call the most? Because if so, then he really has improved as a man-defender in the off-season.

[dobrojim]

Jarvis played LeTravel for much of the playoffs last year...

see IIRC, our starting five was
AD, DS, Arvis, AJ and ET.

I want to say I remember that Arvis actually played decently.

we got swept because Z pwned us and CLE pounded us with size
while Haywood sat.

note that I said we got swept because of ....not that we lost for that
reason.

[MDStar]

My heart sunk when LeBron threw up the three on the buzzer.

Good thing we won. Btw Gilbert told the TNT reporter that hes able to do everything in practice and would have played today had it not been for the doctors pulling him out at the last second. He said he expects to be back in the lineup before the Westcoast trip

When i saw him say that on tv, it made me think i could see the future.

I wrote this on Feb 25 in another Gil thread:

-----------------------------------------------

So basically he's saying the injury is no longer the problem and that he just needs to get in shape to be able to log the heavy minutes that this team needs him to play. You mean to tell me, that he's going ot milk this conditioning excuse for the next month and a half or so. That would make him look as though he quit on his team for no reason at all. Gil just doesnt strike me as that kind of guy. I think he'll be back mid march, probably around the same time as Butler. Maybe the Cleveland game (March 13th) on TNT.

-------------------------------------------------

I knew that was the game, he was shooting for.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Caron with 40+ minutes, thank you EJ

EJ has to be lacking in judgement when it comes to rushing previously injured guys back into playing excessive game minutes. What other coach does that besides EJ?

I'm not privy to the conditioning drills they do in practice. For Caron to go from a couple of practices to a 40-minute game seems to me to be inviting fatigue-related injury and at the very least, sloppy play while he's fatigued.

IMO Jordan would rather limit the minutes of guys who are in game shape, like Blatche and Mason, in order to rush Butler back in.

Seems to me 25-30 minutes would have been prudent and wise for Caron.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Jarvis played LeTravel for much of the playoffs last year...

see IIRC, our starting five was
AD, DS, Arvis, AJ and ET.

I want to say I remember that Arvis actually played decently.

we got swept because Z pwned us and CLE pounded us with size
while Haywood sat.

note that I said we got swept because of ....not that we lost for that
reason.

Jarvis might have played himself into that contract with Detroit based on how he defended Lebron in that series.

This season, I'd just as soon see the Wizards face the Cavs than face Orlando, Detroit, or Boston.

[Spence]

This concern re minutes is overblown. Either Caron was healthy enough to play or he wasn't. He made it clear he was healthy enough by diving around the court in the 1st quarter. There could be no serious doubts after that. The only issue with regard to minutes is conditioning. Caron looked tired down the stretch and it is probably because he ran out of gas. That's got nothing to do with injuries and everything to do with getting back into game shape. EJ decided that a tired Caron was better than his other options. The Bullets won so it is hard to argue that the coach was wrong.

[dobrojim]

This concern re minutes is overblown. Either Caron was healthy enough to play or he wasn't. [snip]

great minds think alike

[Spence]

Lebron James -- Travelin' Man.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

I lost a great post and it's probably for the best.

Caron played too many minutes for his first game back.

[dobrojim]

why do you say that?

I doubt Caron agrees with you not that that should be
the sole determining factor. I go back to my original point,
if he was OK, he was OK. If he wasn't he should not have
played at all.

[closg00]

This concern re minutes is overblown.

Is that why the coach promised the GM that he would "watch his minutes"?

The ends do not justify the means. You can't tell me that a doc specializing in sports medicine would recommend that a player coming off an injury play the most minutes of anyone on the team.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

why do you say that?

I doubt Caron agrees with you not that that should be
the sole determining factor. I go back to my original point,
if he was OK, he was OK. If he wasn't he should not have
played at all.

For one, recent history. I said the same thing when EJ played Gilbert 40+ minutes this season. I said that coming off an injury, a pitch-count type approach makes the most sense. Gil played a lot of minutes and didn't last very long.

I'm not making up an approach that hasn't been tested, jim. Jason Kidd, Amare Stoudemire, Kenyon Martin, and last year Grant Hill were all eased back in gradually. Their coaches erred on the side of caution.

To say one is healthy or they're not to me is like saying if you can run, go do a marathon first time out. If you can sprint, go run 8 to 10 wind sprints of 200 meters in your first session. After all, you're healthy or you're not.

I believe there's practice conditioning and then there's game shape. Certain explosive movements you just won't try in practice you will during the adrenalin rush of a game.

My theory is a guy like Caron's much more likely to roll an ankle or tweak something if he plays more than 20-25 minutes than if he plays less than that. His mind can very easily write a check that his out-of-shape body can't cash.

I think it's not at all prudent to throw a guy right into the grind when you can ease him in instead.

I believe Ernie Grunfeld had a reason for asking EJ to watch Caron's minutes.

Spence and dobrojim, why do you think EG asked Eddie to watch those minutes? You disagree with me and EG, apparently.

[long suffrin' boulez fan]

For one, recent history. I said the same thing when EJ played Gilbert 40+ minutes this season. I said that coming off an injury, a pitch-count type approach makes the most sense. Gil played a lot of minutes and didn't last very long.

I'm not making up an approach that hasn't been tested, jim. Jason Kidd, Amare Stoudemire, Kenyon Martin, and last year Grant Hill were all eased back in gradually. Their coaches erred on the side of caution.

To say one is healthy or they're not to me is like saying if you can run, go do a marathon first time out. If you can sprint, go run 8 to 10 wind sprints of 200 meters in your first session. After all, you're healthy or you're not.

I believe there's practice conditioning and then there's game shape. Certain explosive movements you just won't try in practice you will during the adrenalin rush of a game.

My theory is a guy like Caron's much more likely to roll an ankle or tweak something if he plays more than 20-25 minutes than if he plays less than that. His mind can very easily write a check that his out-of-shape body can't cash.

I think it's not at all prudent to throw a guy right into the grind when you can ease him in instead.

I believe Ernie Grunfeld had a reason for asking EJ to watch Caron's minutes.

Spence and dobrojim, why do you think EG asked Eddie to watch those minutes? You disagree with me and EG, apparently.

To me it's not a quantitative, but a qualitative question. If Caron has been cleared to play, he is fair game for as long as the coach thinks he is being productive. My beef is that Caron was gassed and pretty useless at the end of the game, especially on the defensive end.

I would have loved to see a bit of offense for defense substitution... put McGuire in on d on some of the final possessions. When we get the ball back, call timeout and get Tough Juice back in.

Had we had a couple of productive offensive possessions from 3 minutes left until 1 minute left, we wouldn't have been in the position of having to have Le Child miss a three at the end.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

lsbf, I agree about the qualitative aspect but that didn't really bother me. Regardless of his effectiveness, I really could care less about that one game but the last thing I want to see is another injury to Caron.

Sure, Caron missed FTs and showed signs of rust and fatigue late. He shouldn't have been out there IMO, but dude's only human. He was gassed for sure. I expected that and it didn't bother me.

To shift the focus, the good news is, barring a setback, Butler will probably drop 40-plus in 2 or 3.

Caron's got time to get his legs back to where he starts hitting threes, too. He should be peaking at playoff time.

Him and Gilbert.

[dobrojim]

For one, recent history. I said the same thing when EJ played Gilbert 40+ minutes this season. I said that coming off an injury, a pitch-count type approach makes the most sense. Gil played a lot of minutes and didn't last very long.

True but we don't know if the 2 situations are in any way analogous.
Furthermore we don't know that the heavy minutes Gil played were
the actual cause for him injury. All proponents of either side of the
argument can do is speculate. Wave our hands in the air and say
we must be right.

I'm not making up an approach that hasn't been tested, jim. Jason Kidd, Amare Stoudemire, Kenyon Martin, and last year Grant Hill were all eased back in gradually. Their coaches erred on the side of caution.

But again, same thing applies. We don't know if we're comparing
apples to oranges.

To say one is healthy or they're not to me is like saying if you can run, go do a marathon first time out. If you can sprint, go run 8 to 10 wind sprints of 200 meters in your first session. After all, you're healthy or you're not.

But neither of these things necessarily means you're placing
yourself at risk of injury by trying. I might be out of shape for
a marathon (actually at the moment, personally I'm right about
there, doing 2 marathons in the next ~5 weeks), but that doesn't
mean if I wasn't in shape that I would injure myself by trying. Same
thing with wind sprints, if I wasn't in shape, I simply would be unable
to do them. I wouldn't automatically hurt myself by trying if I couldn't.

I believe there's practice conditioning and then there's game shape. Certain explosive movements you just won't try in practice you will during the adrenalin rush of a game.

My theory is a guy like Caron's much more likely to roll an ankle or tweak something if he plays more than 20-25 minutes than if he plays less than that. His mind can very easily write a check that his out-of-shape body can't cash.

I think it's not at all prudent to throw a guy right into the grind when you can ease him in instead.

I believe Ernie Grunfeld had a reason for asking EJ to watch Caron's minutes.

Spence and dobrojim, why do you think EG asked Eddie to watch those minutes? You disagree with me and EG, apparently.

I suspect if EG felt as strongly about this as is implied here,
that EVERYONE, EJ, Caron, and EG would have sat down and
come to an understanding that he would be strictly limited for minutes.

I think they were conservative about bringing him back in the first place.
That prior conservatism allowed them to safely do exactly what they did.

If Caron had tried to play 10 days to 2 weeks ago, I think you would
have been on much better ground making this argument.

But maybe you'll turn out to appear right a week from now if he
gets hurt again. Even then, we really won't know for sure. But
I know we won that game and for the moment, everything is cool.