Maybe we’ll see Hawkins tomorrow…

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With how physical game 1 was, I just don't see how he could survive.

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Well, I’ll be honest you’ll never know until you test him in this environment and physicality. I know the national championship in college is no where near NBA playoff level but the guy is a winner so it wouldn’t hurt to see if he could help with BI and CJ struggling.

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Has nothing to do with his will to win, has everything to do with his slight frame and how we've seen teams faze him by roughing him up in the regular season.

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I agree and understand your point but from what I heard from a lot of the posters here is the playoffs are in a way to develop some of these young guys. Im not saying Hawkins will be successful(he might or might not) but even giving him a couple minutes of playoff basketball and see how he does could help him. And if he hits a couple shots- it really helps our offense. We’re having scoring issues and we know he has the ability to score.

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Has nothing to do with his will to win, has everything to do with his slight frame and how we've seen teams faze him by roughing him up in the regular season.

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He's 5 lbs lighter than SGA. I'll think he'll be alright.

He's more than 20lbs bigger than Isiah Joe, and he's out there playing.
Even Philly gave Joe a few minutes in the playoffs as a rookie and 2nd year guy that was only getting 10mpg during the season. And this was the 49th pick in the draft.



He needs the experience of whats it's like so he knows how to prepare for it the future.
And Hawkins is fearless, and that's the kind of guy I want out there. We challenged PHX 2 years ago b/c Jose and Trey and Naji were fearless out there. We need more of that, and we have it with several guys.

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If the goal is to win game 2, I'm not sure you play him.

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The thing that scares me a bit. I want Hawkins to get some time but I don’t want him to cut into Jose minutes if we’re trying to win. I think Hawkins can play while maintaining Jose minutes but Willie never does that.

Put him in for a few minutes to simply give him the experience. You can find 3-5 minutes a game to get him in.

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With how physical game 1 was, I just don't see how he could survive.

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If you throw him in for a few minutes he’ll be open because they haven’t game-planned for him. Now if you play him for 15 minutes he’ll get abused

Daniels will play more than 3 minutes. That's for sure

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Weren’t you just on here arguing last week that the playoffs mean nothing to our young players without Zion or am I crazy lol?

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Lol I was arguing at the time what was better for the team long term- miss playoffs(better draft pick and more pressure on staff) or make playoffs. At the time it was miss the playoffs.

But they made the playoffs so it doesn’t matter- because that situation is gone. So now its whats the best thing for this team that they are in the playoffs.

You do realize when things are said its during when certain events or issues haven’t occurred and the discussion was what would be best for the team AT THAT TIME.

But I guess thats a hard concept for you to grasp because you just enjoy playing “Oh oh you said this in the past” without understanding the context, place and time of the discussion.

Of course the prioirty is to win the game.
We aren't going to lose the game b/c Hawkins played 3 minutes in the 2nd quarter.
That's all he needs. You'll know real quick if he is capable of playing more or if he isn't. Maybe the game is too rough for him, or maybe he comes out there and hits 2 3's in their face. Throw him out there and see. He's a national champion. I'm100% positive he's not scared to be out there.

Naji, Jose, JV, Larry, Hawkins, those are all guys that should have their minutes determined by how they are playing. Some games Naji is great out there, and i thought he played great in game 1. I don't think Jose played particularly well, and he did have the worse +/- on the team in game 1, which is not normal for him considering he's got the 2nd highest on the team this year just barely behind Trey. That's what Naji and Jose do though. Some games they are great, some just ok, and a few times they really aren't that good.

Hawkins played in all 3 regular season games against them, so it's not like he's never seen them before, or they don't know who he is. I guarantee you if he gets on the court they know who he is and they aren't letting him get open. And if he can go out there and make a defender stick on him all the time, then that's better than what Herb and Dyson do in the corner with SGA basically playing free safety.
and if SGA guards Hawkins, that's when you run sets for him and make SGA chase him and do some work on that end of the floor.