We've seen so many coaches jack it up before. Year after year, coaches fail to play their best line-ups the most minutes due to "fit" or "rotations" or "Kevin Garnett decides what the Timberwolves do."
But Frank Vogel is quickly becoming my favorite coach. He kept the Pacers decent last year after a really disheartening second half and playoff exit in 13-14 plus losing Paul George, and last night he did the absolutely unthinkable - he played his best players as the starters. ANTI-SKIIIIIILES! Although Aaron Gordon is getting his run lately... Let's go ANTI-BICKERSTAFFFFFFF!
Getting his first start at PF (and first start ever!) after playing virtually all his rookie minutes at center, Myles Turner got the nod at the 4 next to Ian Mahinmi and went 20/6/1/0/1 on 9-17 shooting in 26 minutes. And the twin towers rotation worked sooooo well, with the Pacers up virtually the whole game and running away with it late. The Hawks reserves in the early 4th quarter made a nice run to take a 2-point lead with 6 minutes left 90-88, then Vogel went back to the same starting 5 and Indiana ended the game on a crazy hot 23-2 run. What a unit! Coach Butthole is like, "suck my unit!" When I made my original crazy rank for Turner in the pre-season, my love was based around his fit for the run-and-gun offense, and the crazy part is we still haven't seen the perimeter game yet. He didn't take any treys in this one, but there's no reason to think this starting line-up doesn't stick, which means more minutes for Turner and more opportunities on the perimeter. Hopefully you added him when Mahinmi was out and didn't let go, because, well, NEVER LET GO JACK! I would totally have Myles take me in the steamy car in the cargo hold... Here's what else went down in fantasy hoops last night:
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