As you've probably heard by now, or know from watching, Scott Brooks sat Russell Westbrook for the entire fourth quarter in Thursday night's game. The media coverage that ensued has been absurd on many levels. The first ridiculous part is the rampant speculation (the commentators, Van Gundy in particular, started this) about how upset Westbrook was and what this could mean for the Thunder locker room. Westbrook has said he's fine with what happened. The second piece, since the move, has been the lauding that Brooks has received for this decision (which kept one of his best players on the bench in a crucial stretch of a must-win game). Ben, my ombudsman, and I e-mailed throughout the day on Friday about this decision. I enjoyed the exchange and I thought I'd share it here. We both felt pretty strongly that Westbrook should have been out there, so this is a different view than you got from a lot of media outlets yesterday.
Ben (9:45 AM): Did you watch the game last night? What was your take on the Westbrook benching? I couldn't tell if Brooks was really trying to prove a point or if he was just sticking with his reserves because they had played well. I really don't know enough about their relationship to comment on it if it was actually an intentional benching. If it was the latter one, though, I think Brooks is a complete idiot. Maynor had played reasonably well, but the gap in talent between Westbrook and Maynor is HUGE and they really struggled to execute down the stretch. They kept pressuring Maynor and he does not have the speed or ballhandling skills or whatever to break through that pressure. I felt like the Thunder barely got near the basket for the last 3 or 4 minutes and they could never get the ball to Durant or Harden with any time to set up a real shot. I love Collison, but you really don't want him at the free throw line deciding your fate in what was basically a must win game. I am generally fine with coaches riding a hot guy or lineup until the last few minutes of the game. In my mind, though, once you hit that mark with 3 or 4 minutes left in a close playoff game you have to go back to your best players. It just becomes a totally different situation. There are time outs every 20 seconds of play, coaches call all the plays, and guys really go all out on defense. Those factors all totally disrupt your offense, of course, so it doesn't really matter how Maynor had been "leading the offense" up to that point. You just need high end talent on the floor in those situations and they really missed Westbrook. He might have made some poor decisions in there, but he can do things that Maynor simply cannot do. He would have broken a lot of that pressure and the Mavs got one long offensive rebound right at the end that fell right near Maynor. I would bet everything I own that if Westbrook was in the game, he would have gotten that board. I guess it doesn't matter in the end, because they held on to win. I think Brooks almost cost them the game, though, with that decision. If so, I can only hope he was doing it to prove a point or to motivate Westbrook. Otherwise, it was a totally unjustifiable ridiculous decision in a very important game.
ME (10:18 AM): Yeah, I watched, and I thought it was pretty strange. I feel like it's a stupid move either way. As you said, Westbrook should have been out there. Particularly with the way that Dirk was playing in the fourth, it had the feeling that the Mavs could steal it, and in that case you need to have the best guys out there to prevent it.
So, I'd think it was to send a message. But, I didn't thing Westbrook was bad in the first three quarters. Admittedly, I was grading essays as I was watching, so I wasn't watching closely enough to be 100% confident in that judgement. But, there have been some games in these playoffs where I really thought he was taking some awful shots. I don't remember a whole lot of them yesterday. So, why this game?? It sounds like you may have watched more closely, so tell me if I'm wrong and the message was warranted.
BEN AGAIN (1:38 PM): Abbott defends Brooks here:
http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/29377/thats-what-coaches-do
I still don't see it. I have no problem playing Collison over Ibaka or Harden over Sefolosha or going small with Cook instead of Perkins. In many of those cases I actually think the bench guy is the better player! I understand that coaches have to take chances and all that, but there is a huge gap between Westbrook and Maynor. Maynor is clearly a below-average player who is not good enough to be a starter. I like him, but he has no outstanding skills and is really nothing more than a good backup (at this point in his career, at least). Westbrook is one of the top point guards in the NBA! Second-team all-NBA! I even think people dramatically overrate the gap between him and Durant. I agree with the consensus view that Durant is the better player, but I see his edge as being slight whereas I think most people see Westbrook as a distant #2. I do think there are intangible factors that should influence a coach's thinking, but those things are small factors that subtly adjust the overall big picture. And the big picture is that the gap between those two guys is huge. You would need a whole hell of a lot of magic fairy dust intangibles to make up that difference!
To credit this as having courage - or as superior leadership makes no sense. Basketballwise, it's basically indefensible. As Abbott says - they had played well - but then Dallas had just scored 6 straight points. So, essentially - the bench had done their job. They played well and didn't blow anything while the stars were resting. This is when you put in the best players.
BEN (2:27 PM):
"But, like I said, my opinion might not be helpful because I don't think it was ok regardless of the aim. I don't think you send that message now. There are 82 regular season games for sending messages and getting everyone in the right mindset. This is not the time to deal with that type of stuff. Even if it was sending a message, sending that message could have cost them the game."
That's the way I feel. Make your principled stands in games that won't threaten your entire season. Like I said, I'm willing to cut Brooks some slack here, just because I'm not there in their locker room and I don't personally know Westbrook. Knowing what I do as an outside observer, though, I would never make that call.
p.s. It takes a lot of courage to do something moronic in front of thousands of viewers!