Everything Nick Nurse

[G__Deane]

"Nurse says that come the playoffs he’ll aim to trim his rotation down to nine regulars. Assuming Lowry dodged a serious injury, he’ll join Leonard, Danny Green, Pascal Siakam, and one of Ibaka or Gasol in Toronto’s first unit. Playing with Ibaka or Gasol in the second unit will be VanVleet and OG Anunoby.

So, there’s eight. Jeremy Lin, Norman Powell and Patrick McCaw will fight it out for the ninth spot, and as things currently stand, none of the above have separated themselves. With that in mind, games like Monday’s serve as somewhat of an audition for that trio. And perhaps the most interesting candidate to monitor is Lin."

[golden]

"Nurse says that come the playoffs he’ll aim to trim his rotation down to nine regulars. Assuming Lowry dodged a serious injury, he’ll join Leonard, Danny Green, Pascal Siakam, and one of Ibaka or Gasol in Toronto’s first unit. Playing with Ibaka or Gasol in the second unit will be VanVleet and OG Anunoby.

So, there’s eight. Jeremy Lin, Norman Powell and Patrick McCaw will fight it out for the ninth spot, and as things currently stand, none of the above have separated themselves. With that in mind, games like Monday’s serve as somewhat of an audition for that trio. And perhaps the most interesting candidate to monitor is Lin."

Nurse loves PGs, so the smart money would be on Lin.

[S.R.]

I'm having a hard time seeing Powell lose his minutes with how much use he's been getting lately, but who knows. My ideal would also be the 8 man KL/DG/KL/PS/MG/FVV/SI/OG rotation, but I expect we'll be getting a bunch of Lin and Powell anyway.

[planetmars]

Between Powell, Lin and McCaw you can really throw a die and randomly pick one. They can give you something good, or something terrible and are pretty consistently inconsistent that way.

McCaw gives you hard nosed defense, but sometimes too hard? He doesn't have the IQ and his offensive awareness is slim to none. He's won 2 chips.. so is probably not playoff shy. If we need an all-defense line up I guess I'd rather have him out there over Fred. But Nurse won't do that.

Lin is a half decent defender and can hit open 3's. Not great at running an offense.. but Nurse loves having 3 PG's out there. He got through linsanity unscathed which could mean he'll be a playoff performer, but was never really tested there. When his shot is off, he's pretty brutal though.

Norm should know the playbook well. He can hit open 3's. A pretty good defender and proven playoff performer. But he has no IQ. I've watched a lot of basketball.. and I've never seen anyone get called for a travel call as they were inbounding the ball. WTF?

I think all three should get a minute or two here and there. I don't think anyone of them will create that Bebe moment we had last year (although Norm with his IQ may replicate some of that - which scares me a bit, lol). But their minutes should be scaled back hard regardless.

[LJ2]

I'm having a hard time seeing Powell lose his minutes with how much use he's been getting lately, but who knows. My ideal would also be the 8 man KL/DG/KL/PS/MG/FVV/SI/OG rotation, but I expect we'll be getting a bunch of Lin and Powell anyway.

Based on how they've played so far this season would you still want Gasol starting, and not Ibaka?

[KeonClark]

Between Powell, Lin and McCaw you can really throw a die and randomly pick one. They can give you something good, or something terrible and are pretty consistently inconsistent that way.

McCaw gives you hard nosed defense, but sometimes too hard? He doesn't have the IQ and his offensive awareness is slim to none. He's won 2 chips.. so is probably not playoff shy. If we need an all-defense line up I guess I'd rather have him out there over Fred. But Nurse won't do that.

Lin is a half decent defender and can hit open 3's. Not great at running an offense.. but Nurse loves having 3 PG's out there. He got through linsanity unscathed which could mean he'll be a playoff performer, but was never really tested there. When his shot is off, he's pretty brutal though.

Norm should know the playbook well. He can hit open 3's. A pretty good defender and proven playoff performer. But he has no IQ. I've watched a lot of basketball.. and I've never seen anyone get called for a travel call as they were inbounding the ball. WTF?

I think all three should get a minute or two here and there. I don't think anyone of them will create that Bebe moment we had last year (although Norm with his IQ may replicate some of that - which scares me a bit, lol). But their minutes should be scaled back hard regardless.

Kyle, Kawhi and Pascal should average about 36 mpg. Danny about 28. Serge and gasol lock up the 5 and maybe 4 min shared court time as well

that leaves only 52 min for the bench. Fred will take about 24 min, OG 20.

that math leaves about 8 min left. I don't think we'll see a ton of those bottom 3 guys unless one of them gets hot and fred or OG really struggle..

[G__Deane]

Nurse loves PGs, so the smart money would be on Lin.

Lin or Powell for sure. But with the recent and ongoing injuries to both Lowry and FVV, my money would be on Lin too .... and I think that would be the smart move too. I think Lin's starting to get it and last night shows his potential

[G__Deane]

Based on how they've played so far this season would you still want Gasol starting, and not Ibaka?

I think there's still time to determine that but there's no doubt that both Nurse (and particularly Masai) want Gasol to start.

[KeonClark]

Based on how they've played so far this season would you still want Gasol starting, and not Ibaka?

Ibaka has not been substantially better. They've both been just average since the trade.

ibaka has been a better individual scorer, but the ball sticks. We have had the BEST 3 pts % in the league since gasol showed up and that is not coincidence. The 5 man game was absolutely gorgeous last night.

in short, I like ibaka bringing scoring punch off the bench and getting some chemistry with fred. Gasols bbiq is needed

[S.R.]

Yeah, still Gasol over Ibaka. Have been hoping to see even more from Gasol than we have, but he's got the potential to make all 5 guys better in a way that Serge just doesn't. Serge just needs to have good games off the bench, he's hit or miss there sometimes.

[slaw]

I'm having a hard time seeing Powell lose his minutes with how much use he's been getting lately, but who knows. My ideal would also be the 8 man KL/DG/KL/PS/MG/FVV/SI/OG rotation, but I expect we'll be getting a bunch of Lin and Powell anyway.

OG, Powell and Lin will all get looks, especially in the first round, and, subject to matchups, I think performance will dictate how much any one of them plays. OG (because of his size) and Lin (because of his ball handling and playmaking ability) likely have the inside track on those extra minutes. Powell's issue is that he is still not dependable enough.

[golden]

Norm should know the playbook well. He can hit open 3's. A pretty good defender and proven playoff performer. But he has no IQ. I've watched a lot of basketball.. and I've never seen anyone get called for a travel call as they were inbounding the ball. WTF?

Powell immediately followed that up beauty by tossing the ball out of bounds on the next end-of-quarter opportunity (3Q), and topped it off by fouling the 3pt shooter 40 feet from the basket with less than a second left to gift the Knicks 3 points. Holy moly. Nurse has a long-ass leash, man.

[slaw]

Powell immediately followed that up beauty by tossing the ball out of bounds on the next end-of-quarter opportunity (3Q), and topped it off by fouling the 3pt shooter 40 feet from the basket with less than a second left to gift the Knicks 3 points. Holy moly. Nurse has a long-ass leash, man.

There's a reason why FVV plays all the time and guys like Powell go in and out of the lineup and you've just illustrated it perfectly.

[G__Deane]

Powell immediately followed that up beauty by tossing the ball out of bounds on the next end-of-quarter opportunity (3Q), and topped it off by fouling the 3pt shooter 40 feet from the basket with less than a second left to gift the Knicks 3 points. Holy moly. Nurse has a long-ass leash, man.

I forgot about that last second foul on the 3 point attempt. It actually seemed like a bit of a bullchit call, epsecially in a blowout.

[Zak24gege]

There's a reason why FVV plays all the time and guys like Powell go in and out of the lineup and you've just illustrated it perfectly.

I cannot understand why Nurse would ever have Powell be the in-bound passer and then why call that idiotic full court pass play with the score being what was. Those two plays cost 5 points. Didn't affect the outcome fortunately. First you always have a high IQ guy (Sorry Norm) take the ball on o.o.b. plays and secondly no need for that stupid high risk low reward play that cost Serge 3 games. Those were two real dumb-ass calls on Nurse's part. What is the guy thinking. The part that freakin' bugged me was Powell's smirky laugh...HA HA I got another year at 10 mil. HA HA