The NBA might not have intentionally set up the Spurs to lose, but it sure looks that way.
The Spurs chose to secure the win against the Orlando Generals and rest in a tougher game, basically guaranteeing themselves 1-1 in that stretch. If they rest against Orlando and play all the starters against Miami, they could easily have gone 0-2.
The pregame guys say it's not ok to rest players because this isn't like last year where the schedule was compacted (and no sanctions were handed out for it last year)... well, this is their 4th road game in 5 nights, 6th straight road game, 10th road game of the month, and 16th game of the month. Last year, the NBA averaged 16.5 games per month.
The Spurs are on a compressed schedule and they'd rather play for the title than a meaningless November game. The NBA put the Spurs in this situation, now they want to punish them for dealing with it. Well, where does that stop? If he mandates that every starter plays, Pop will play the starters for 15 seconds. Is Stern going to start managing minutes? Something tells me Stern wouldn't have said anything if this were a game against Minnesota
One interpretation is that the NBA wanted to make sure the Heat would win this big matchup with the over-the-hill Spurs and thought Pop would just limit the starters' minutes. They overplayed their hand, Pop called them on it, and now they're sore about it.
[This message has been edited by Ulrich (edited 11/29/2012 7:37p).]
