Two potential rotation adjustments should be under consideration for Mitch Johnson ahead of Game 2. <\/p>\n
First and perhaps foremost, he may need to rely on Dylan Harper even more. At the very least, he should look at having him close games over De’Aaron Fox or Devin Vassell, who combined to go 7-of-24 from the field in Game 1. <\/p>\n
Demoting Fox in the bigger moments can be a tough sell. He is mission-critical to the Spurs, limiting their turnovers in the half-court. But it’s equally tough to portray him as indispensable when he’s not hitting shots and when the Knicks’ offense feels more comfortable attacking him than Harper. <\/p>\n
Benching Vassell in favor of Harper is probably the middle ground. Then again, between him, Harper, Fox and Stephon Castle, he’s the most decorated floor-spacer. Regardless, after the starters notched an offensive rating under 90 for Game 1, it’s worth contemplating changes.<\/p>\n
The Spurs should also revisit no-big arrangements whenever Wemby’s catching a breather. This isn’t going to be a Luke Kornet series as long as the Knicks are mirroring Brunson’s minutes. <\/p>\n
Going with rookie Carter Bryant instead is somewhat harrowing with Karl-Anthony Towns or Mitchell Robinson on the floor. But the increased defensive versatility and aggression might limit the damage without Wemby, if not buy San Antonio’s superstar a few more beats of rest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two potential rotation adjustments should be under consideration for Mitch Johnson ahead of Game 2. First and perhaps…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":714103,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-714102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=714102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/714103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=714102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=714102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=714102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}