According to Cavs.com. Gibson is out due to personal reasons. Telfair is sick and will not travel to Atlanta. Shaq is listed as out, and LeBron is not listed in the starting lineup.

Look for the Hawks to rest their players as well...since they have locked up the 3 spot.

I hope they bring LeBron in at the start of the 4th and just let him try to break the quarter scoring record.

An Orlando sports writer has said publicly he's not voting LeBron as his MVP because he's sat out the last 3 games. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Yesterday ESPN was saying Shaq was going to play today...I wonder what changed?

pkebker wrote: Yesterday ESPN was saying Shaq was going to play today...I wonder what changed?

Mike Brown was quoted as saying he keeps going back and froth whether to play Shaq or not tonight. I'm betting he probably thought he would at one point and ESPN reported that, then went back to deciding to not play Shaq.

The NBA Regular Season, where pointless happens.

I don't think there is a more meaningless regular season out there. Each year 3-4 teams have any kind of "legit" chance of winning, and everybody knows who the teams are. It's a smack in the face that Cleveland, Orlando, L.A. (pick your #4... Denver?) even have to play in the regular season. If those teams played the way they will play in the playoffs (actually play defense for 48 minutes), they'd have even more wins than they already have. Basically the regular season decides which teams are going to be the sacrificial lambs for the playoffs, and which teams are going to be drafting in the lottery.

Couldn't you say that about every sport?

thedynasty1998 wrote: Couldn't you say that about every sport?

Nah definitely couldn't say it about the NFL, and baseball has had a bunch of different World Series champions over the past 10 years, much more than the NBA.

Was there any question that the Cavaliers and Lakers were going to run away with their respective conferences?

I get what you are saying, but in baseball you know that it's going to be the Yanks or Sox almost every year out of the AL. In football, the wild card's rarely win more than a game.

It's the nature of professional sports, you have the elite teams, the good teams and then everyone else.

I happen to think that the regular season means a lot in basketball (definitely more than MLB) because of home court advantage. Look at the West right now and how close all of those teams are, one or two games makes a huge difference in home court advantage and matchups.

Doesnt happen often it seems like haha...but i 110% agree with Dynasty on this one

I think it would have been best for Shaq to play this game. Let him get his feet wet instead of throwing him into the fire in the playoffs. Then again, playing Toronto may not be much of a threat and Mike Brown knows that.

thedynasty1998 wrote: In football, the wild card's rarely win more than a game.

I don't think that's accurate at all. In the past 5 years, two wildcard teams (Pitt in '05, Giants in '07) have won the Superbowl, not to mention others who have won "more than one game." Doesn't really fit the definition of "rarely."

dat dude wrote:

thedynasty1998 wrote: In football, the wild card's rarely win more than a game.

I don't think that's accurate at all. In the past 5 years, two wildcard teams (Pitt in '05, Giants in '07) have won the Superbowl, not to mention others who have won "more than one game." Doesn't really fit the definition of "rarely."

Exactly. The Giants come to mind when they beat the Patriots a few years back and went on to win the Super Bowl.

Blah, blah, blah. There is no book written on the best way to do it--different teams will benefit from different things. Either way, I'm happy they're resting and I think this is the stupidest discussion going on in sports right now.

thedynasty1998 wrote: I get what you are saying, but in baseball you know that it's going to be the Yanks or Sox almost every year out of the AL.

I'll raise you the L.A. Lakers and San Antonio Spurs in the NBA. Since the 1999-2000 season the Lakers or Spurs have played in 9 out of a possible 10 times in the Finals.

Boobie sure has been out a lot just when he would have been given opportunity to play. I don't think he will be around next year.

I really do get your argument that you know the top 2 teams in each division. But look at the race in the West for home court. It is what it is, but I just don't think you can say the NBA regular season is pointless.

It isn't pointless at all. Just because the last 5 games are for the Cavs, doesn't mean they aren't meaningful games to other teams. The regular season is just as important as it is in any other sport.