empatronic

98 | 2 days ago

Even in blowout games like today’s, getting solid minutes from these guys means keeping minutes off the starters and it will pay dividends later in the playoffs. Being able to put Baylor, Walsh, and Garza out there for 15 minutes each while maintaining a comfortable lead is a nice luxury.

Schafer89 | Boston Celtics

39 | 3 days ago

Late night Noa article, nice!

hrmbwd

-30 | 2 days ago

The only Mazzula habit I don’t love is him riding a short bench in the playoffs. I really hope we get a longer rotation like yesterday throughout. Our bench guys always come out with high energy and focus and the J’s just aren’t as good playing 40 minutes a game. We need fresh legs in the 4th.

now_hear_me_out

20 | 2 days ago

Every contending team tightens up their rotation in the playoffs, typically teams run about 8-9 guys out there unless it’s a blowout. Yesterday was a luxury in that the game was out of reach pretty early and our end of bench guys play well enough to maintain a lead against a team like Philly. We’re just in a really good position right now

hrmbwd

-3 | 2 days ago

So, 1/ we’re not every other team, depth is a strength 2/ not every other team tightens up, the reigning champion thunder have a longer bench. 3/ I’m talking 9-10 guys. If we rested Tatum more last playoffs, maybe he doesn’t get injured. This is just my opinion, and clearly not a popular one, but it’s something worth looking at.

now_hear_me_out

5 | 2 days ago

I see where you’re coming from and I wouldn’t knock on our stay ready crew, they’ve been awesome all year. It’s a matter of minutes distribution, playing more guys means taking your better players off the floor for less time.

I disagree that Tatum got hurt by playing too many minutes last year. His workload was managed well, sometimes these injuries happen. In his case, it was early in the game and hard to imagine it occurred as a result of fatigue.

The major benefit of depth is to be able to manage workload and rest during regular season so guys have fresher legs for playoffs. Our team has done that really well in recent years and those end of bench players have capitalized on opportunities to crack playoff rotation later on. Take Hauser for example, he barely saw any playoff mins earlier in his career and now he is starting game 1 of this playoff stretch. He didn’t get thrown to the wolves early on, he developed and earned his mins and now we are seeing how his hard work has paid off.

CharlemagneIS

4 | 2 days ago

I agree with everything you said, but didn’t Tatum’s injury happen with 3 minutes left in the 4th? It wasn’t early in the game

now_hear_me_out

2 | 2 days ago

Ah you’re probably correct, my bad. I think I confused it with his injury in that game 7 against the heat because I now remember the knicks game was mostly out of hand when his achilles snapped.

Resident_Balance422

1 | 2 days ago

I honestly agree, I think our bench is the strongest in the league and we should be using that

NEW STORY: In Game 1, four different Celtics saw their first real playoff action. “The coaches have been talking to them, just saying, ‘Be ready. Might be five minutes, could be 20… but just got to make your minutes count.” On Sunday, they delivered.