GAME 1: San Antonio Spurs (0-1) vs. Dallas Mavericks (1-0)| 119-126 WIN!

[DanSchwartzgan]

We'll see.

Right now after last season, I'm pretty done with the notion of this pseudo starting 5. Just start your best 5 for now instead of purposefully putting your team in a deficit to start the game. 

Of course it's way too early to say DJJ isn't apart of that best 5 and perhaps he does work well, but the Mavs looked pretty poor to start the game. And it was only until Lively, Green, and THJ came in till the Mavs started to have life and that pretty much told the story of the game to me.

It does make you wonder if the idea all along was to close with Green and Lively and the three starters or that just happened in the flow of the game.  I suspect the former.  I think it’s probably far better for there to be a set rotation.  I don’t mind taking a few weeks to get there as long as it doesn’t cost us games.  Right now 1-0 in clutch situations after being among the worst in the league last season and among the best the season before.

To me, it makes sense to have a bench unit that is Star/Exum/THJ/Maxi/Powell and then Star/Exum/THJ/DJJ/Maxi.  That doesn’t mean those guys all get the entirety of the minutes where only one star is playing.  Green comes back to play some of the Kyrie Only minutes which naturally holds Exum (or some other bench guard) to something more like 15-18.  Powell, Maxi and DJJ maybe somehow split 40 minutes (other than nights Lively has foul trouble) so that GWill gets a few minutes of run with the bench rotation.  

We won’t be playing Luka and Kyrie 70 minutes a night mosts nights.  So, there are a few more guard minutes for someone besides THJ and Green.  I liked the way they rotated Luka and Kyrie (not playing Luka 12 straight minutes of the 1st/3rd).  I hope that’s the plan and not just a way of adapting to Luka’s lack of preseason PT.