We have seen that, at times, Monty loves to troll us. And I have to admit that he got me again. I studied every word he said over the last month, and I thought I had his rotation pegged coming into this game. I wanted Monty to play Rivers and Jimmer together, but Monty strongly implied it was one or the other. I saw Ajinca and Babbitt getting key minutes in the preseason with starters, and assumed they would be in the rotation. I saw Salmons struggle, and saw Monty scale back his minutes because he was terrible offensively and defensively. Because of all this, I thought it was a lock that the rotation would feature 9 guys (The Big Six, Ajinca, Babbitt, and Rivers) and that we would see 8-10 minutes of the three big man lineup.

I was wrong.

The AD-Asik-Anderson trio only got a minute and a half of playing time together, and Jimmer surprisingly got 18 minutes, while Salmons got 10. Even more surprisingly, both Babbitt and Ajinca registered DNP’s for all intents and purposes. They got in the game, along with Withey, when the game was already over (Pels up 23 with 2 and a half mins left). Now, maybe this was a matchup thing, but if there was a team that Babbitt could play SF against, it is Orlando. Same goes for Ryan Anderson.

No complaints here. You can’t nitpick after a blowout win to start the season, but I will say that Monty got me yet again. What did you guys think about the rotations? What would you change, if anything? (Box Score)

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