The Portland Trail Blazers will have to pull out all the stops to take down Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs in the playoffs. That includes shrinking the rotation and kicking some players to the curb.
With multiple injuries pulling players from the lineup all season long, interim head coach Tiago Splitter had to draw from his bench again and again to keep the Trail Blazers afloat. He did that well enough for this group to make the playoffs as the No. 7 seed, a feat worthy of the full-time gig if Portland's new owner is willing to pay him a real salary.
Yet it's the playoffs now, and that means leaning on your best players and bringing only a few off the bench. The 10th and 11 men in a rotation ride the pine so that the Blazers can build the best possible lineups in the best possible situations.
Who got kicked to the curb? Let's look at three players, two of whom went from in the rotation to out in Game 1 on Sunday -- and one who was forced out by the NBA's rules and owner Tom Dundon's cheapness.
No. 1: Kris Murray
That proverbial "11th man", it was almost certain that Kris Murray was going to be excised from the rotation when the playoffs began if everyone else in the rotation was healthy. That has to be a bitter pill for Murray to swallow, as he took a real step forward in his third season as an all-around player, defending and rebounding and filling the gaps.
At the end of the day, however, he has not been able to translate his shot to the NBA, where he shot only 27.9 percent from deep and 68.4 percent from the free-throw line. Splitter wants big bodies who play hard, certainly, but not at the expense of the team's spacing.
No. 2: Sidy Cissoko
Casual NBA fans may see that name and ask "Who??" but locked-in fans of the Trail Blazers know just how important Sidy Cissoko has been this season. The 6'6" forward played in 75 games, third-most on the team behind Toumani Camara and Donovan Clingan, and was a nightly fixture playing 19.1 minutes per game.
Unfortunately, Cissoko also struggles to shoot the basketball, which goes from a weakness to a crippling disability in the playoffs, especially against a team like the Spurs, where Wembanyama is roaming in the paint and Portland needs shooters to knock down shots. After losing Game 1, Splitter might try a different approach and put Cissoko into the game, but he was riding the bench to start the series.
No. 3: Caleb Love
Caleb Love was never going to be a part of the playoff rotation despite playing over 1,000 minutes for Portland this season and scoring a point every two minutes. That is because Love is on a two-way contract and therefore not eligible for the playoffs. Rather than cut Blake Wesley to make room, the Blazers played the long game and will keep him on a less expensive two-way deal into next year.
You can make an argument that Love should have made the team after his play this season, including winning the Blazers a game against the Spurs earlier this season, but leaving him off the roster was a strategic move that many teams would have made.
The reason Love is on the list, in part representative of his fellow two-way players, is that he was literally kicked to the curb and not at the game at all. Per Sean Highkin of the Rose Garden Report, new owner Tom Dundon decided to cut costs and not fly the two-way players to San Antonio at all.
What a slap to the face to Love and his teammates, and a terrible signal of things to come for this new ownership group. If Dundon wants to run this franchise on a shoestring budget, they will likely produce shoestring results. And Love, Chris Youngblood and Jayson Kent are among the first to feel the sting.
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