SACRAMENTO — It should be Saturday at the latest that Nick Nurse will have his full complement of players at his disposal.
Health means options which means decisions for Nurse … Remember Dewan Hernandez? … The Kawhi myth — Toronto Sun
SACRAMENTO — It should be Saturday at the latest that Nick Nurse will have his full complement of players at his disposal.
Then it’s an entirely different form of tough for the head coach.
Rather than filling in the gaps, Nurse will be looking to juggle as many as seven deserving starters while trying to keep everyone happy.
Marc Gasol returned to the lineup Sunday after a 15 game-absence that combined with an earlier injury to the same left hamstring has seen him play just 36 of the 63 games so far this season.
Fred VanVleet, who was questionable coming into the Sacramento game will sit out at least one more and probably a second in Utah before making his return on Saturday once the team gets back home.
“I think we probably (give him the extra time) but we’ll see what happens here tonight,” Nurse said of VanVleet’s return date before the game in Sacramento. “He’s really close so he’ll certainly be in once we get back home but we’ll see what happens tonight with everyone.”
The thinking is that with four full days off between Monday’s game in Utah and Saturday’s at home against Detroit, the prudent decision would be to give the guy with the sore shoulder the extra time off rather than bring him back for one.
With Gasol back and Serge Ibaka playing at a very high level, the decision was made to bring Gasol off the bench for Monday’s game but to hear Nurse tell it that decision and a few more are going to be revisited very soon.
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Health means options which means decisions for Nurse … Remember Dewan Hernandez? … The Kawhi myth — Toronto Sun
The view from left field 