But Seriously, He Handles The Rotation Like An Artist. For Real.

Posted by on Monday, December 14, 2009 4 Comments

The C’s play their starters together more than any team in the league. After 22 games (so not including the Bulls game on Saturday night), the C’s starters had played 468.48 minutes together. No five-man group in the league has played more. And No. 2 on the list—the Grizzlies starting five (415.65)—is probably the most overworked starting unit in the league. The Grizzlies four core starters (Marc Gasol, Rudy Gay, O.J. Mayo and Zach Randolph) are all playing more minutes per game than any Celtic.

Do the math, and that 468.48 minutes works out to about 21 minutes per game, meaning the C’s starters are on pace to spend about 1,744 minutes together on the floor this season.

And that, my friends, is a ton of minutes for one unit to play together. Last season, the most-used line-up in the NBA played just 981.32 minutes—a bit more than half the minutes the C’s starters are on pace to play together this season.

Oh, you want to know which unit led the league with 981.32 minutes together last season?

via Where Does the C’s Starting Five Rank? » Boston Celtics Basketball – Celtics news, rumors and analysis – CelticsHub.com.

Now, the point is not that Doc’s overworking the Celtics, far from it. They play a nice distribution of minutes, dont’ get too overworked, and get their rest in. But the issue is that Doc doesn’t handle a rotation. He just relies on his starters to get the job done. I mean, essentially, the backup units are only used to try and tread water. While that’s true for a majority of teams, the level to which it’s true for the Celtics is interesting.

In the playoffs, rotations get shortened and fewer players play. So that works to the Celtics’ advantage. But not being able to exploit different strengths of different lineups can be a challenge, and that’s before you get to the requisite rest concerns. So watching as the Celtics’ entire world hinges on Doc playing his veterans that don’t really need him the most minutes in the NBA is in itself notable. The Celtics have the highest point differential in the NBA. But if the Lakers are up 20+ in the fourth, they send in the garbage squad, watch Shannon Brown dunk, and their lead dwindle slightly, adjusting if the other team dares make a run. The Celtics just keep pushing, because they don’t know what else to do.

Oster-Tags: , , , , , ,

About Matt Moore: Matt Moore is a Senior NBA Blogger for CBSSports.com's Eye on Basketball blog, weekend editor of Pro Basketball Talk on NBCSports.com, and co-editor of Voice on the Floor. He lives in Kansas City due to an unbelievably complex set of circumstances and enjoys mid-90's pop rock, long walks on the beach and the novels of Tim Sandlin.

All Posts by  |  Personal Blog  |  Twitter  |  Share By Email
Post comment as
twitter logo facebook logo
Sort: Newest | Oldest
msk

Bryant, you have a point. The Lakers bench is pretty weak (Odom doesn't count as a bench player on that team) and the starters play a lot of minutes. I guess Matt is trying to say that Phil Jackson, by the end of the year, has a few different line-ups that he knows work in certain situations. Doc Rivers basically has his starting five. Maybe Phil has more flexibility, though if he wears out a key starter, it doesn't matter. Who knows how it will work out?

One difference, though, is that Kobe is not human, and is in the best shape of anyone, and can go long minutes. We'll see how he lasts. He has played an incredible number of consecutive games over the past few years and in the 2009 playoffs, only had one game where it looked like fatigue really got him (game 4 in Denver).

Also, key Lakers are younger than several key Celtics (though not Rondo and Perkins). I hope these teams get to meet in the Finals at full strength.

share
  • spam
  • offensive
  • disagree
  • off topic
 Like
Bryant

Sure. But I don't see how you can critique Doc for that in comparison to the Lakers, given that Phil's working Kobe harder than any Celtic starter. The Lakers starters are, on the whole, being worked more heavily than the Celtics starters. The Celtics bench is getting more minutes than the Lakers bench. It's just a bad comparison.

Nice game from Memphis tonight, by the way. They are going to be a contender way sooner than anyone thought. I was nervous before the game and I don't expect to see them play Boston any time in the next few years and not be nervous.

share
  • spam
  • offensive
  • disagree
  • off topic
 Like
Bryant

I think you're misreading this, Matt. It's not that the Celtics starters play more minutes than anyone else. It's that they play more minutes together than any other group of starters.

As of this comment, Kobe is playing 36.8 minutes per game. Ray Allen leads the Celtics in this category at 35.4 MPG. Pierce is right behind Allen, followed by Gasol at 34.4 MPG. Artest is right behind Gasol, then Rondo, then Bynum. Big gap before Garnett at 30.5 MPG. Perk is way down there, as is Fisher.

The average minutes for Celtics starters is 32.43. The average for Lakers starters, counting Gasol as a starter (and ignoring minutes Odom played as a starter while Gasol was out) is 33.16.

share
  • spam
  • offensive
  • disagree
  • off topic
 Like
Matt Moore

Bryant, I wrote this.

"Now, the point is not that Doc’s overworking the Celtics, far from it. They play a nice distribution of minutes, dont’ get too overworked, and get their rest in."

I get the fact that they play together. I'm aware of what rotation minutes mean. My point is that you can't have a lineup play heavy minutes together without the individual players playing lots of minutes. And more my meaning is that Doc's not finding alternative lineups. He's just relying on his veterans to be great players. And that's still going to have a cost on wear and tear. Perhaps I should have made that more clear, though.

share
  • spam
  • offensive
  • disagree
  • off topic
 Like