08-13-2020, 12:57 PM
(08-13-2020, 12:02 AM)sefant Wrote: looking at the minutes that Stotts played Lillard/McCollum, the Blazers treated the game like a playoff game in terms of minutes and Rick did not. Lillard/McCollum ~ 40 min. While Rick treated the game like a reg season game. Luka should have played 5 min more. DFS is prolly the best Lillard defender on the team, only with 30 min? We were missing like 5 guys (Curry, Brunson, Powell, Lee, WCS) and the bench is a total crapshot right now, and Rick decided to play his regular rotation. This isn't the beginning of the season anymore where the Bench was stacked. Maybe DFS was banged up, because he appeared on the injury report before. Otherwise not matching Lillard minutes with DFS is a joke. He also went +9 in the game, and only played 30 minI think there is an important observation here, which is that the Blazers went all-in, which they had to do since they were fighting for survival. Whereas, the Mavs, if anything, went a little on the low side in terms of starter minutes. One can question whether that was the right decision, but it helps us understand where the team is coming from. From Rick's point of view, not wanting to risk getting his players exhausted/hurt in a contest that was essentially meaningless for them in terms of the standings. From some fans' POV, perhaps a missed opportunity to take the dreaded Suns down a peg.