Coaches’ Corner- Late Season, Play 8, Trust 7

In the NBA, playing an 82 game schedule, teams need to have a deep roster. If you look at NBA boxscores, you will see that usually teams usually have 9 to 10 players playing at least 15 minutes per game. This allows them to have most of their top players only play 30-35 minutes per game. This distribution of minutes is necessary to maintain play health over an 82 game schedule. 

Once the teams get to the NBA Play-Off’s, teams shorten their bench. Instead of playing 9-10 players significant minutes, they will cut that to just 8-9 players in the rotation.

The NBA coaching axiom in the Play-Offs is “Play 8- Trust 7.” The concept is that now that you get to the elimination round of the season, you need to reduce your rotation to 8 players. And when you get to crunch time of these big games, just trust 7 players. 

So in the NBA Play-Offs it is not unusual to see teams play only 8 players, and then in the second half drop it to 7 players. 

Obviously the “Play 8- Trust 7” is an arbitrary set of numbers. Not all NBA teams follow this axiom, but most of the teams reduce their playing rotation at Play-Off time.

This is a concept each high school coach needs to think about going into the end of season tourney. 

** Is it in your teams’ best interest to shorten your bench at tourney time? Instead of playing 9, should you only play 8?

** If you are going to shorten the bench, do you shorten it by playing fewer players, or just playing some players fewer minutes? 

** Do you want your best players to start playing more minutes? How will you get them more minutes?

** Do you take the approach, “we are who we are,” and choose to maintain the same rotation in the tourney?

** If you are going to change or adjust minutes of your players, how do you communicate this at the end of the season?