There were certainly several games in which it was a blowout until the bench came in and it actually ended up as a close score. The game logs will reflect this.

Is anyone else concerned that Amir had 0 rebounds in the last game? Played 12 mins racked up 5 fouls and had 0 boards. of course one of those fouls was a clean block on Gordan.

I have looked thru every game log today. Not to mention I have watched every game twice anyway, and learned very little from reviewing the game logs just now. But here is the answer:

On December 1, and on December 4, Afflalo only played 3 minutes in the first half, but then played garbage time minutes to get to his 11 minutes. These are the only two games all season where anyone can say Afflalo only got to play 11 minutes because of garbage time in the 26 wins we have had with him playing 11 minutes or more.

In all other games where Afflalo played 11 minutes in a win for us, Afflalo played a minimum of 6 minutes in the first half.

So again I say, we are 26-4 where Afflalo has played 11 or more minutes. And blowouts had precious little to do with it.

In those 4 losses, Afflalo playing did not lose us the game.

The first loss was an early season one where Billups and Dyess were out. (No Stuckey yet either.)

The other 3 were Dallas, Orlando, and NY, some of our worse losses of the season, all from very poor play by our starters.

Lee - I appreciate all the work and I am not disagreeing with the results, it just does not make any sense. Afflalo is good but not that good. There had to be some other factors involved.

1) AA's mins were cut when Stucky started playing and it seems like Stucky happend to start playing at a time when the team was struggling.

2) Flip Murray was playing earlier in the year when the team was not winning as much.

3) AA did play a lot in blowouts. Not sure how many but there were a few games.

This team has only lost 17 games. 46-17 is an impressive record so there are not that many losses to play with.

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It's gotta happen more than a time or two for me to think twice about it. Sometimes the ball just doesn't bounce your way. Especially when you're only playing in two 5-6 minute stints. If this wasn't the exception to the rule, then yes, I would be concerned.

The thing that does concern me is that now with Theo here, Flip will be looking for every reason possible to keep Amir out of the rotation for the rest of the season.

We will see when Sheed gets back . You could be right and have evey right to think that given Flips history with young players but I don't think thats going to be the case. Namely since Dyess has been struggling with his shot and Maxiel on the glass. Amir had that one bad rebounding game but its becoming a pattern with Maxiel.

If a player is working hard and producing then the coach will find a way to play him. I wish I could say that about Afflalo but I do believe its the case with Amir. Besides Joe likes Amir too much to let him rot on the bench at this point in time.

Theo was a nice addition.

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Would love to see Sheed and Theo start and bring in Dice and Amir off the bench with Max as the 5th big. Just like AJ's game more then Max's at this point.

I'd prefer staring Amir and Sheed and bringing Dyess off the pine and splitting 4/5th big minutes between Max and the Rattler.

But I like the way you are thinking.

Agreed. Amir plays better with Sheed.

Although to be fair...

Who wouldn't?

As far as the D glass, Amir and Sheed are excellent together because Amir goes and gets the ball where as Sheed tends to just do an excellent job of blocking out.

When you get Amir and Max out there together, neither one is blocking out THEN going to get the ball regularly enough and you give up lots of needless 2nd shots.

Thats among about 100000000000000000 reasons the Amir/Sheed pairing is our best outside of Dyess/Sheed (Although it isn't right now as Dyess is strugglin)