The Boston Celtics are spending their weekend in Florida as they endure the first set of back-to-back games of the season as they prepare to take on the Miami Heat and Orlando Magic on Friday and Saturday night this weekend.
It’ll be interesting to see how the lineup looks and if Joe Mazzulla will make any adjustments in regards to accommodating certain players for back-to-back games. Perhaps he’ll look to do more of that during the second night of the back-to-back against the Magic.
I’m extremely fascinated to see how Mazzulla goes about the load management of his roster and we’ll be able to see that firsthand this weekend.
Whether he’ll admit it or not, Al Horford needs to be managed properly this season with the end goal in mind of being as healthy and available as possible for the playoffs. It’s been said multiple times during the offseason that Horford will not be playing in the back-to-back games, however, Horford feels differently about that.
The same can be said for the rest of Boston’s core group of players. Jayson Tatum admits fatigue hit him by the time they landed in the NBA Finals last season. And to that point, Ime Udoka mentioned in a postgame press conference after Game 5 that he believes fatigue could’ve been part of the problem down the stretch.
There is nothing wrong with load management on a championship team. This group now understands it takes everything out of you to get to Finals, I feel as if the players will be open to load management with the end goal being a trip back to the Finals.
All in all, I feel it’s extremely important for Horford to be refreshed and recharged as often as possible this season. Ideally, I don’t think Horford plays even close to 2,000 minutes this season.
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Photo Credit: Charles Krupa, AP Photo
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