If he had taken them out when i wrote my last message (with 5:47 left) they would have all played around 30 minutes (tay around 34).

If he had taken them out even during that last time out (2:10 left), they would have been in around 33 -34 minutes (again, except tay).

so that was certainly weird and uncalled for.

however, and apart from those last 5 minutes, i'd say this substitution pattern was a step in the right direction for flippy.

i can't quite put my finger on it, but overall i liked this victory. indiana is still a gritty defensive team, with real active hands, and physical on the boards. though the gap was on kind of a yoyo string (4-12 pts, until the final sheed-led run), i never felt this was going to be a loss. it's good to beat teams that play ugly -- that's a hopeful sign to me.

i also liked that as soon as lindsay stepped on the floor everybody bodied up, trapped, denied passing lanes, rotated aggressively. (i know i know, his lob was ugly, in fact most of his offense was ugly, but i think he deserves a half dozen games or so at 10 minutes a game before we can definitively say that he hurts our offense more than he helps our defense).