Sixers hang on to go to top of East
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 night-to-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, 123117, 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 ever-evolving 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, said to have had season-ending ACL surgery after just three games, is even discussing returning for the playoffs.