Let me make this totally clear: I have never, ever blamed Carlisle for a loss. Been mad at him, yes. But I think if he played his cards better, we would have won this game. If you don't believe that I've never said that, then I challenge you to go find a time where I said Carlisle's responsible. I have been, and still am, of the opinion that most people here underrate him, that his poor rotations he gets ripped for (and sometimes his poor rotations aren't really so, just the way fans view it as), and when he inserts people in the right places at the right time no one notices.
But playing JJ 31 and Butler 14 minutes? Unbelievable.
Butler played terrible, and he needed to be called out for his play. I think starting JJ, after a hot end to the 1st half, was both a callout of Butler and made perfect sense because of JJ's good play. I assumed that JJ would play 6-8 minutes, then Butler would come in with JET to provide offense once Dirk left the floor for a breather. You guys know what happened, though.
We needed a spark of offense, and as we saw with RJ in game 2, I think Butler may have been able to provide it. But he played 14 freaking minutes.
The most atrocious thing, though, was Kidd playing 44 in conjunction with JJ playing 31. You think that with 2 point guards on the floor that much, Kidd could have got a little more rest? Nah. Its not like he was playing great. Ended with an underwhelming line of 7/7/5 missing 5 of 6 three pointers.
I'm really pissed off right now. JJ for two straight quarters? He ended up with 14 points! Over half of those came in the 1st half! JJ made 3 FG's in 24 minutes of play in the 2nd half. Tell me that he deserved to play 24 minutes. Its not like he's some defensive stopper...when's he's only hitting 3 FG's in 24 minutes all he's doing is hurting the defense.
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