Pair of playoff teams face rotation decisions

Tiago Splitter (above) beat DeJuan Blair off the bench in San Antonio's win over the Suns on Sunday. (Soobum Im-US PRESSWIRE)

Most teams have their playoff rotations close to set, though injuries might make things a bit dicey in Philadelphia (Lou Williams), Atlanta (Jason Collins), Miami (Mike Miller, dragging a bit) and Boston (the O’Neals), and the Knicks are still trying to figure out which B-level guys merit any time at all. 

Two other teams are facing rotation decisions more rooted in strategy than health, and at least one could have major implications in the title race. In San Antonio, there appears to be a mini-competition for backup minutes between DeJuan Blair and Tiago Splitter, though Gregg Popovich won’t say much on the subject and Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio Express-News thinks Blair may have already won the competition. Maybe.

But smart San Antonio fans took notice on Sunday, when Splitter beat Blair off the bench in a semi-important game against the Suns. Blair lost his starting spot to Antonio McDyess a month or so ago, and he hasn’t progressed all that much in his second season. Splitter is four inches taller than Blair, a more careful pick-and-roll defender and a better defensive rebounder — all potentially important factors on a team that really has only one at-the-rim intimidator and ranks near the league average in defensive rebounding. And being league average in that category ranks as pretty awful for the Duncan-era Spurs. 

The problem, of course, is that Splitter has played fewer than 700 minutes all season and thus remains a bit of a wild card. And for all of Blair’s limits, the core five-man units featuring the Blair/Tim Duncan and Blair/McDyess pairings in the frontcourt have performed well. The groups featuring Blair and Matt Bonner as the two front-court players have been inconsistent, and it will be especially interesting to watch how Popovich uses Bonner once the games truly start to count. Bonner is a core rotation piece and very important to what the Spurs do offensively, but he’s much shakier on defense and as a rebounder. Pairing Bonner and Blair is risky. 

There’s also this complication: Splitter has played fewer than 30 of his 687 total minutes with Duncan, and it’s clear Popovich does not like this combination — or hasn’t so far — because of the spacing issues it creates on offense and (perhaps) the problems this pair would have defending stretch-4s with range and quickness. (Side note: If the Spurs and Hornets end up meeting in the first round, San Antonio fans will be relieved David West is done for the season). If this pattern sticks, Splitter is strictly a Duncan alternative, while Blair can play both with and without Duncan on the floor. Matchups will obviously have a lot to do with this, and you just never know what the Spurs are holding in reserve. The smart money remains on Blair getting major minutes and Splitter working only as a fringe rotation player, but it bears watching — especially if we get Lakers-Spurs in the conference finals. 

The other rotation decision to keep an eye on is in Indiana, where Mike Dunleavy is healthy again and theoretically prepared to reclaim his starting spot from Paul George. Pacers’ coach Frank Vogel is sticking by George, and it really won’t make any difference, since the Bulls are going to whoop the Pacers regardless. Still: The debate, such as it exists, does bring up a couple of bits of trivia. First: The Pacers have played much better with Dunleavy on the floor this season than they have with either George or Brandon Rush at shooting guard, and it’s not close. Indiana’s current starting lineup — Darren Collison/George/Danny Granger/Tyler Hansbrough/Roy Hibbert — has been outscored by about 10 points per 100 possessions, according to Basketball Value. The margin stays just as bad if you substitute Rush for George. But in 152 minutes with Dunleavy at the 2-guard spot, that lineup is +4 per 100 possessions. 

Even more interesting: Indiana’s original starting lineup, which featured Dunleavy at shooting guard and McRoberts at power forward instead of Hansbrough, was among the very best lineups in the league before Dunleavy’s injury broke it up. In 440 minutes together, that group outscored opponents by about 14 points per 100 possessions — a monster number. Of the 50 lineups that have logged at least 225 minutes together, only four have put up better scoring margins: the Lakers’ starting lineup, an old Mavericks starting lineup that included Caron Butler, and the two Boston line-ups that feature the Celtics’ four core starters playing with either Glen Davis or Shaquille O’Neal. The Pacers’ group doesn’t fare quite as well in Basketball Value’s adjusted plus/minus system, which takes into account the quality of opposing lineups, but it’s still very good by that measure. 

This could all be a coincidence given the sample size involved, and it’s moot, anyway, since Hansbrough has supplanted McRoberts as the team’s starter. And if you’re going to lose in the first round, perhaps it’s more valuable in the long run to give major minutes to George instead of Dunleavy, who will be a free agent when the season ends. But Dunleavy is the most accomplished scorer among Indiana’s shooting guards, and that might mean something on a team that has struggled to score all season.