I'm going to trash my own argument before I begin by saying you don't toy with what has worked so far. Your starting 5 is your starting 5… so we're throwing Rondo, Ray, Pierce, KG and Perk out there against Cleveland.
But my counterpoint would be that you are always making minor adjustment as needed… so long as you're not screwing with the overall product. So therefore I submit my crazy idea: Start James Posey.
Consider this my attempt at being Belichickian… who will always attempt to take away your greatest strength and roll the dice on the weak link beating you. Cleveland's greatest strength is LeBron James… and starting Pose would let him cover LeBron from the outset. Posey's our best defender… and he's pretty good from the outside… so he's still a bit of an offensive threat. And Ray would still get his 35 minutes or so… but he'd be the fresh anchor of our second team. He'd essentially be our Ginobili. Maybe… just maybe… this could force LeBron to do something different. OR… it could force Mike Brown to do something he didn't want to do.
This, of course, would be something you cleared with Ray. There's a stigma with coming off the bench. People will say "oooh…. Ray got benched" and they'd throw up his poor shooting numbers against the Hawks. That's not what this is about. It's about slowing LeBron down… forcing him to change his game ever so slightly… and maybe get off to a hot start.
You know… while we're at it… you'd have to clear this with Paul Pierce… because he's the guy getting pulled off his defensive assignment.
I know this won't happen… and I know there will be plenty of disagreement. Hey… I'm not 100% behind this idea either… but its something that crossed my mind… so I figured I'd throw it out there.
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