Thus far this season Larry Drew has been ultra conservative with his starters minutes. In Monday night's game he decided to ride the starters down the stretch in a 106-101 victory over the Nets.
"Going into halftime, I was going to come out and see what happened and go off feel," Drew said. "Once New Jersey made that run, I made a decision to ride the starters. I didn't want to lose momentum. I went with feel. I kind of went with my gut."
The result was Joe Johnson, Jeff Teague and Al Horford all surpassing 42 minutes and Josh Smith missing out because of picking up two fouls in the first quarter. Johnson and Teague played the entire second half. The bench was key in Atlanta's nine game in 12 day stretch to open the season and although that stretch is over, the condensed 66 game schedule is still going to be grueling.
Atlanta will enjoy another off day on Tuesday before wrapping up the two game road trip in Indiana against the Pacers.