First and foremost, Nash playing hide and seek with lineup
PHILADELPHIA » By now, there is no use complaining about an insult to pro basketball more than a decade in development. By now, the only thing to do is identify and appreciate those who have taken load management to an art form.
Originally a seemingly harmless endeavor to occasionally rest top players in the regular season to keep them more energetic for the playoffs, the idea sprouted its own unofficial rules. There was the back-to-backgame loophole. There was the nationally televised game consideration. There was the obligation to entertain a home crowd, not a road mob.
There was even a nod to some weird sports science, where brainiacs with arithmetic fixations were permitted more sway over a nightto-night lineup than a head coach. True story.
Eventually, the insanity became mainstream, proving that customers eventually will become inoculated against such disrespect. But then came Wednesday and a game for first place in the East between the Sixers and Brooklyn Nets, the kind of event the NBA could use as it tries to recover from a year-plus of silent arenas and resulting lost interest.
That’s when there was reason to wonder: Did Brooklyn Steve Nash, always among the most creative basketball artistes, come up with a new way to add real basketball value to the seemingly ill-timed maintenance day?
Already playing without injured stars James Harden, Blake Griffin and Spencer Dinwiddie, Nash would casually scratch otherwise healthy Kevin Durant, too. Nor would LaMarcus Aldridge play, as he had called in sick. Predictably, the Nets would fall, 123-117, and slip into second place in the East. The standings used to be why they played the games. Yet
Nash and the Nets were rather unbothered by it all. So, it was wondered, what was that all about?
That’s when what Danny Green said during a press call following a morning shootaround, gained relevance, as it lifted another layer of cover from the everevolving coaching trick.
“I know there were times in San Antonio when we didn’t play everybody,” the veteran shooter said, “so that teams wouldn’t know how to guard us or how to play us.”
Green said that for a reason. And maybe it was to expose what the Nets were plotting Wednesday.
The Sixers will not play Brooklyn again in the regular season. But assuming relatively decent health for both teams, the likelihood is strong that they will meet in the Eastern Conference finals. If so, the Sixers will not have had a single on-court look at a Brooklyn lineup with Durant, Harden, Griffin, Aldridge and Kyrie Irving, or how they might mix with Griffin. Dinwiddie, who purportedly had seasonending ACL surgery after just three games, is even discussing returning for the playoffs.
With that group together,
Brooklyn will be a handful. Without an in-season chance to experience it, the Sixers could be at an additional disadvantage. No, that doesn’t sound like a massive postseason difference-maker. But, as Green let it slip, it apparently is something of a high-level NBA back-door play.
Doc Rivers has been an NBA head coach since 1999, so there is nothing he hasn’t seen or likely considered. And since he has come to coach the franchise that is the industry leader in unreasonable player rest, he was not in position to violently protest whatever it was Nash was plotting.
To him, climbing out of that first-place tie was enough of an assignment for one April night.
“I mean, we’ve done it, but it really hasn’t been intentional,” Rivers said. “It’s usually wherever the schedule lies, if you know what I mean. If that’s one of our rivals or one of our important games and we decide to rest, we don’t ‘add’ rest because it is one of those teams.
“We’ve definitely done it, but not for the same purpose.”
The Nets have time to recover and win the conference. They have the talent.
Julius Erving, who played at something of a high level for both franchises, even recently mentioned on Green’s podcast that, like the Yankees, they are trying to buy a championship.
But the Sixers won three of their four head-to-head matchups with the Nets. So if there is a tie in the standings and Erving’s alma maters collide in the playoffs, the seventh game will be at the Wells Fargo Center. There, the Sixers have won 50 of their last 57, including Wednesday, when they rested only Dwight Howard and Joel Embiid went for 39
and 13.
For the record, Nash denied trying to hide his best hand from the Sixers Wednesday. And some of Brooklyn’s injuries are real. Yet the conspiracy theory did swell on a night when the sport deserved better.
“Honestly, we didn’t think about it,” the Brooklyn coach said. “I think when you start to believe that, it backfires.”
Maybe he’s right. Either way, appreciate the art.