I was beginning to think I was the only person to watch the last two games. I love Batum's game as much as the next guy, but last night in particular was a bad game, plus it was a home comming for Wes. All players have bad nights. It is a long season. I would say Nate's substitution pattern was pretty fucking good last night.
Just stating the obvious... He was the guy guarding the guy that was killing us...two nights in a row. Obviously Nic is a better defender than the majority of the team, most likely the reason his leash is shorter. Agree or not, and obviously you don't, Nic needs to be a stopper on defense and he hasn't been the past two games.
Nic is probably my favorite player on the team right now, but from what I saw against Chicago and from what I heard last night, he's been kind of struggling to get his game going at both ends of the court ... I'm pretty confident that this is a minor blip that will be quickly corrected, but I can't really fault Nate with going to somebody else that was bringing the intensity that the team needed. However, if the pattern continues for multiple games moving forward then, yeah it might be time to start getting worried.
The team went the first 5 minutes of last nights game shooting 2-12 (Roy was 2-2, the rest of the team was 0-10), yet Batum was benched and saw only 8 more minutes the rest of the game. I understand some of you think he was having a bad game, but how can he even have a chance to develop as player or get anything going with those limited minutes?
By realizing that the the season is not over so there is a chance he will get to play a little bit more.
Go look at Armon's game log - whenever he had a bad game-score, he is yanked from the game quickly (Games 2 and 3). But, because he is a rookie, he is yanked much faster than Batum 2:39 and 4:45 vs. 15 minutes or so for Nic. I still think that Nate is very consistent in the way he deals with younger, non-star players. You work your role - you get play time, you do not - you do not.
Nic is young, and hardly got a break due to the Worlds; he's tired. We have to be really careful not to push him too hard, and injure him.
