It's a lot like what Cavs have. When Bron is not playing, they have good ball movement and everyone is involved. When he comes in, everyone expects him to be the primary scorer and everyone is just standing around waiting for him to do something.

I agree that can happen with LBJ, but I think the opposite happened last night with Rip and the bench. Rather than the bench standing around, it looked more to me like Rip just took the ball and tried to move everyone else out of the way. It was only a 2:43 span starting the second, but Rip was 0-1 with two turns as he repeatedly drove into five Wolves and then lost the ball.

I guess it is a better idea to have Sheed or Tay out there with rooks.

You gotta give the starters some credit for how they finished out the season IMO. They were pretty aggressive considering they were trying to avoid injury and they really had nothing to play for, with the exception of a possible home court advantage against certain Western foes in a possible finals match up.

Also give credit to Flip for the way that he got the best of both worlds toward the end of the season. He won just enough games without burning anyone out. On top of that, he's been mixing in the bench at a level that is satisfying even the biggest zoo crew fans. At least I know that I am happy with it.

Of course the question remains, will he trust the bench in the playoffs. No need to criticize him before it happens.

__________________
You can never have perfect introspection: because if you could, then you could determine what you were going to do ten seconds from now, and then do something else.

Flip said he'll trust any of the 12 players that were on the floor yesterday in the playoffs. I wonder if he left Dixon out? But, anyhow, we've heard a lot of talk before so I'd love to see it finally come to fruition. Especially considering the fact that the bench is much improved comparatively to the last two years.
I do love what he's been doing down the stretch and I surely hope it continues in the playoffs. Obvioulsy not to the same extent, but on a reasonable scale.

There really was some pressure on the bench players last night. Maybe the most of the whole season. They could have potentially screwed up our HCA in the Finals. When the score got close, I'm sure they felt it.

Afflalo hit a huge shot and then Jarvis hit what was probably the game winner with the shot clock running down. They were going up against starters with a pretty dominant big man.

That is the type of game that builds confidence. It wasn't a ton of pressure, but it was a lot for them.

I his post game comments he actually said he had 14 players that he felt comfy going with and that any of the 12 active for each game could see playing time, the only one he didn't feel would be ready was Samb... and he even qualified that by saying it was because he hasn't played enough.

Who is this guy and were is our Flip?

Flip actually said last night that he would trust any of the 14 guys in a playoff game at this point. He said Samb was not ready, but he said he wouldn't be afraid to use Dixon or Herrmann in a playoff game. I doubt an NBA coach has ever been able to comfortably use 14 different guys throughout a single season of playoffs.

Even popovich has used 10 at best, and those have been proven vets.

There is a difference between "would trust" and "will trust." Flip is saying that if he was forced to play someone toward the end of the roster, that he trusts that they will make sound decisions and play a team game. He's not saying that he's going 14 deep voluntarily.