MPM wrote:I understand that you're no fan of emotional criticism (completely agree, and I'm with you), and I try to steer clear of knee jerk responses to poor games, but I think some of the critiques/grievances on here are more than rational, particularly in light of what have become year-after-year patterns and on-court play that flies in the face of stated direction. Seriously, Clifford sounded more harsh post game than many of us here on the board.
That's kind of my point. Folks want to be all "here we go again" when this game was very different from how we played last season and Cliff himself is accurately articulating the concerns. Al played 22 minutes despite going 8 - 14 when he played. Our rotations were much more dynamic (using Marv as SF to free up some minutes for Frank, subing Batum for Lin when our offense was all gunked up in the 3rd quarter, running Cody and Marv as our bigs down the stretch).
We managed to make a game competitive in the last minute despite shooting under 40% from the field and 25% from three, when the opposing team was 50% from the field, 60% from three, and 95% from FT with 21 attempts.
There was a lot of good that happened in this game that shows we are a different team that just executed poorly.
MPM wrote:This is the concern - that Clifford might sit a rookie out of principle as opposed to playing rookies on a case by case basis.
Cody saw regular minutes as a rookie over two journeymen vets in Adrien and Tolliver. PJ had every opportunity to play meaningful minutes and even started when MKG went down in November last season.
There has never been actual support for the view that Cliff won't play rookies.
MPM wrote:I also somewhat disagree with the impression of Winslow's usage last night. Agree to disagree perhaps. Deng, Wade, Green, Dragic, Chalmers, etc. are all vets that deserve court time, yet the Heat managed to carve out 26 minutes for Winslow. He also saw minutes before Johnson (nearly 19 mpg last year, 0 last night) and Ennis (17 mpg last year, 0 last night) showing the Spoelstra is giving his rookie significant minutes because he thinks Winslow can provide more than other, more seasoned, contributors.
Johnson is very young himself and Ennis is a D league caliber player. Neither were on an NBA roster before last season. Spencer has much more experience and, while he did struggle last season, and has been much more productive throughout his career. You can't really compare Winslow earning minutes over those guys to Frank earning minutes over Spencer.
MPM wrote:Again, I think you flip flop Kaminsky (6 minutes) and Hawes (18 minutes) last night and you see a better result while developing your more important asset. I'd be fine with 18 for Tank and 6 for Hawes for the remainder of the season. It's a minor single game criticism that may not mean anything if Frank starts to see more burn, but if it develops into a season long pattern, I'd be very disappointed.
I'd rather get a couple weeks into the season before I make that call.
