Green have to be a standard starter. I think Doc is not understanding that...
Agree, and hope doc understands that.
It is INTIMIDATING to other teams when they not only have to guard the legendary scorer Pierce, but now have a guy in Green coming at them at the same time, a guy who dropped 30 points on the suns, 27 points on Atlanta, and 43 points on the HEAT. Guarding both these guys is a TALL task, one or both is sure to go off on you! By the way they are pretty good defenders to boot!
This potent attack does not exist when pierce and green are not on the court together.
As good as these guys are, when they are not together teams can anticipate greens attacks and they can double and slow down pierce. Sometimes greens role off the bench changes, and it is not clear when he can attack and take the game into his own hands.
green should start. Big lineups please doc! and save the small lineups for once in a while surprises. like once in 10 game surprises!
Wilcox
Garnett
Green
Pierce
Bradley
We don't have the personnel for big lineups. With that lineup our only big off the bench who plays any solid minutes would be Bass. Going with that big a starting lineup would force Doc to play much smaller 2nd units. In order to play big, you have to have bigs. So unless Shav suddenly puts together games like he did last night consistently, you're going to have to watch small ball.
Pierce started his career as a big SG, but he is too slow now to keep up with the quick 2s in this league, he would be a defensive liability. Wilcox should not be starting, he works best as an energy big off the bench working offensively in transition and (trying) to clean the boards. KG is our starting center and the center of our entire defensive identity, we can't move him back to PF now.
Green has been great in the starts he has gotten, but he is most effective at SF and since Pierce can't play SG at a high level anymore Green is the one Doc has to play out of position at PF. Yes they pose problems for opposing defenses when they are both on the floor at the same time, but I think you get the most of the pair when they play SF. So Green can drive the 2nd unit and Pierce leads the starters.
This is a very short sighted view. As the playoffs come around teams are shortening rotations to 7/8 man rotations. Having bigs off the bench is important, but we are not going to have elite backups for every position! So it is VERY silly to play Green behind pierce exclusively. It is not effective for a versatile great player like green playing spot minutes behind our aging captain! Play them together and reap the rewards, and the bench simply has to step UP.
Starting lineups is priority number one. Don't alter every thing to appease a bench that only plays 15 minutes a game, and gets much much smaller during play offs! That is a HUGE mistake.
If green is only playing behind pierce then inconsitant 7 to 15 point games are going to coninue. Feature green WITH pierce as a 2 3 position punch, and these guys will play defense and continue to combine for 40 plus points! Our bench will simply have to be resourceful and fight, maybe we will have a small bench. But to make the starting lineup small AND the bench small means we are ALWAys playing small, and it won't work.
Pierce 2 green 3 is AWESOME go green.
Its not short sighted at all. Come the playoffs the rotations do tighten up, but Doc already has some of the tightest rotations in the league and he can't extend KG's minutes much past what they already are without him breaking down/running out of gas. Its important to have enough size coming off your bench so that they aren't out there with 4 SGs and a PF. Putting Green/Pierce at the 2 just clogs our only source of depth up even more and means someone else has to step in to take up the minutes Green was logging at PF and I personally don't see Jason Terry as a substitute nor do I really want Wilcox or Bass to be seeing any more minutes than they already are.
But thats not even the main point, this is:
Pierce is not a 2, nor can he effectively play the 2 for an extended period of time. He is too slow now. He will get beat off the dribble by other team's quick 2s and either give up easy baskets or end up on the bench from foul trouble. And offensively Pierce's game is mostly from the elbows and out, so the size advantage from having him at SG won't make a major difference.
Green can probably play the 2, but he is way out of position. Listed as a PF, more of a SF, but definitely too big to be a SG. He is so athletic that he can pull it off but he is much better suited to play the 3 or 4.
Maybe I wasn't clear enough, I don't mean to say that Green should play solely behind Pierce. In fact I'd like to see him start at PF instead of Bass for a while and see how productive our offense can be with him and PP on the court at the same time. And there can even be some times when Green is down at the 2 for short bursts.
But WE ARE A SMALL TEAM. There is no way for us to play big because we don't have enough talented big men. Its easy to say the bench just needs to step up, but thats not realistic. Its hoping for too much and setting yourself up for failure.
We are a small team, we have to play small ball, thats just the bottom line. I am all for Pierce and Green playing at the same time, but moving one of them to the 2 doesn't work.