In the past 24+ hours, Coach Lionel Hollins has taken some heat for some of his late-game substitutions and rotations.
While he did make some frustratingly confusing decisions, I think each line up has to be looked at in the context of the game.
To defend Hollins, you have to realize that he rode the starters through most of the 3rd quarter, and it paid off as the Grizzlies moved from down just one at halftime, to up one going into the 4th.
The starters were always going to play heavy minutes in a game 7 situation and while it is the job of the coaching staff to balance those minutes and make sure they were fresh enough to finish the game, they were locked in a close game and probably kept thinking that they had a big run in them and as soon as they got some separation, they could bring the reserves in and let the starters breathe for three or four minutes.
The run never came, and Hollins ended up burning his starters out before the 4th quarter ever started.
On the other side you may be asking yourself who’s job it is balance the player’s minutes and make sure your guys aren’t being worn too thin.
That job falls on Lionel Hollins.
Understand, Hollins has done great things for the Memphis Grizzlies franchise, and continues to do great things here. He beat the Spurs, he almost took the team to the western conference finals, he led the team to home-court advantage just this past year. Those are all good things for the team, that reflect well on the franchise and city.
On the other side, Hollins is notoriously thin-skinned and hard-headed in most everything he does. He does not like talking to the media and he has little or no ability to adjust on the fly. If someone adjusts to what he’s doing in-game, there is no plan B.
In a lot of ways, the Grizzlies having a deeper team for the 2012 playoff run worked against Hollins and his staff. In 2011, the Grizzlies had about four quality bench guys in Greivis Vasquez, O.J. Mayo, Shane Battier and Darrell Arthur off the bench.
In 2012, they have Gilbert Arenas, Mayo, Quincy Pondexter, Dante Cunningham and Marreese Speights. They also have Jeremy Pargo who played at times, giving the Grizzlies too many bodies for Hollins to pick from.
At times, it seemed like he wanted to manage minutes like it was the regular season, when rotations tighten up in the playoffs.
So Hollins didn’t make a single sub until the 3 minute mark of the 3rd quarter, with the 4th rapidly approaching and by then it was almost too late. You couldn’t pull everyone or that’s three minutes of terrible offensive basketball.
So Hollins did what he could with what he had. To his credit, he did a good job of keeping at least four guys who could score the ball on the court at the same time, subbing the non-scoring threats out for each other, but the damage was done. The Clippers went on a run, got up by 10 and never looked back.
Understand, Hollins didn’t make O.J. Mayo have one of the worst stretches of his Memphis career shooting the ball, and it wasn’t his fault Zach Randolph wasn’t 100% and it wasn’t his fault that a million other things didn’t go the Grizzlies way, but in game 7 he was faced with a difficult choice to make and he made it. It’s easy to sit here now and say that he screwed up, but if he had pulled Gasol or Randolph with the game very much in doubt, people would have freaked about that too.
It’s a situation that Hollins will undoubtedly learn from going forward. As he said in the post-game presser, “hopefully the sun will come up tomorrow. I think it will.”
It definitely will, but for the first time in a long time, Hollins has earned himself some second guessing. It will be interesting to see how he deals with it.