MAVS NEWS: Luka Is Hurt, But is Trudging On | DLive's Mom Passes Away| Maxi OUT

[DanSchwartzgan]

I hope the defensive effort translates to other teams, but I think we need to be realistic on who we were playing. Essentially teams can put all their defensive weight on the two Phoenix stars, and force some really weak left-overs to make plays. It's not working for them.

Still our rotations look better and all of our wings look involved.

You have to stop someone in the playoffs and having Lively, DJJ and Exum on the court is the most promising way to do that.  We don't platoon our bench so Kidd basically has to manage substitutions that positively answer the following questions (but not necessarily all at once):  

1.  Can good Josh give you Exum like productivity when he's in for Exum?
2.  Is Killer correct and GWill's D is good enough to cover bigger bench wings/PF's when DJJ is sitting?
3.  Can THJ's O cover the few minutes one of Luka or Kyrie sits in a playoff game?
4.  Do we have an answer for the non-Lively minutes at the five?

In theory one through three should be fine if everyone is healthy.  Four worries me (which is why I keep harping on this).  I just think this rotation makes a ton of sense for the here and now if we can better cover the non-Lively minutes.