As we all know, in the two days of January 10 and 11, Beijing time, the Rockets will duel with the Timberwolves and the 76ers at home, which is also often called "back-to-back games". For the Rockets, many players are not in good shape, Porter Jr. and Jaylen Green themselves are prone to injuries, plus they have not played a few games in their comeback, so Silas did not let them play for too long in the Rockets' game against the Timberwolves.
In this game, Silas only gave Jaylen Green and Porter Jr. 26 minutes to play, while none of the Rockets' starting 5 Tigers played more than 30 minutes, except for the 26 minutes of Porter Jr. and Green, Gordon only played 27 minutes, Tate played 23 minutes, even the active Wood, only played 28 minutes.
Looking at the bench, in addition to Matthews' 31 minutes of playing time, Martin Jr. played 27 minutes, Christopher played 27 minutes, Nuwaba played 17 minutes, and Daishin Knicks played 7 minutes, and these players played almost less than 30 minutes.
Was this something the Rockets had deliberately done? The answer is yes. Silas "re-planned" the rocket players' playing time before the game. According to Silas, he intends to make every Rockets player available in these two back-to-back games, so he decided not to let any player play more than 30 minutes! That's why the Rockets' rotation players have played less than 30 minutes.
30 minutes looks like the "ceiling" of the Rockets' playing time. Why did Silas do this? The Rockets are not the Lakers' kind of veteran team, except for 33-year-old Gordon, almost all the rotation players are under the age of 30, and there are even a large number of rookies under the age of 25.
But Silas did it anyway, partly to protect the players from injury, and another reason was that Silas might have planned to give up the game against the Timberwolves outright, and instead focused the Rockets' "full firepower" on the next philadelphia 76ers!
Silas revealed that in the next game against the 76ers, in addition to Jaylen Green and Porter Jr., veteran Eric Gordon, who usually takes a back-to-back game, will also play in this game. This is a rare situation in the past, although Gordon's state is good and the feel is first-class, but Silas will always try to protect Gordon, lest his injury affect the overall plan of the Rockets.
But why did the Rockets take this game against the 76ers so seriously? To this end, he did not hesitate to let the Rockets players "go through the motions" in the previous game, and the playing time was almost less than 30 minutes? The reason is that as mentioned above, the Rockets are eager to beat the 76ers at home, so they "strategically" have reservations against the Timberwolves. The next rocket and 76ers battle, I believe the Hugh City Army will be 100% full play.