#the only player who can't be subbed out early is sloot

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One thing that needs to change after olympic break is Ruthy minutes. She was the best player when Candace, Allie and Stef were out and for her to only get 4 minutes is just horrible. I think minute management as a whole needs to improve. Ruthy and Allie need to play more, Sloot, Allie and Stef need to play more together, players need to be sat when they're not playing well and players need to play 25+ minutes when they're playing well

yeah, like, I know it's hard to get her too many minutes when stef is having a good night offensively, but ruthy seems to be the last choice big now and it seems like a mistake. idk, it's not like charles is a good match up for her but she could definitely go toe to toe with plaisance or gustafson! there's not a very good reason that astou should be getting more minutes than her unless astou is able to come in and exploit a specific matchup (which she sometimes can, just not tonight). and to be honest, z hasn't been great this year. she misses so many layups that we all know ruthy would...not. if she was playing like she did last season before her injury then i would understand it cutting into ruthy's time. but she's been pretty rough!

with the way she played when stef and candace were out, I thought ruthy earned more minutes than she's been getting.

part of the reason the minutes aren't working imo is because unless there's foul trouble he often takes too long to make subs. they started that third quarter TERRIBLY and he still didn't make a sub until like 6 minutes in! and it was allie and then he played her pretty much the entire rest of the game without much of a break. she was excellent today and yet the only reason she made it above 25 minutes (i think she had 28?) was because she played all of ot. and she was gassed at the end because of the way he works those minutes

i know it's not as simple as saying to just sub at the 3 or 4 minute mark, but when you have no flow to start, it's better to start subbing early so starters can get rest when they're not producing anyway, and then you can see if anyone off the bench can get something going. it's not anything crazy, that's just like normal basketball stuff? and it gives you the chance to put your starters back in down the stretch without them being exhausted OR you have the chance to give those productive bench players a couple minutes rest before putting them back in to close out if you want. keeping the starters in so long means that they overcommit and have fewer options later in the game, or everyone is too tired!

it's like sometimes they're only using the bench players as placeholders until the starters can get their breath back, not using them as actual players who bring their own skills and be productive. tonight was one of the first times I actually felt like they played allie appropriately and not as a placeholder for diamond/kah. and they still stopped running plays for her down the stretch.

also only vaguely related, but i thought of it when you said we need more stef-sloot-Q combo minutes. the sloot and stef pick and roll worked SO well tonight and they need to use both that and the stef and allie pick and roll way more. surefire plays to get the offense rolling. especially when stef and allie are both hot at the same time like today