Hahn's NBA Insider: Resting stars unfair during playoff push

ORLANDO, Fla.

There was some serious karma working at the IZOD Center Friday, when Terrence Williams and the Nets took down the Chicago Bulls in double overtime. The night before, the Bulls were gift-wrapped a 109-108 win, courtesy of Mike Brown, who opted to rest LeBron James. Chicago's one-point win moved the Bulls into a tie with the Raptors for the final playoff berth in the East.

Toronto also lost Friday, so the Raptors and Bulls enter today's head-to-head matchup in Toronto with identical records in a pivotal game for that final playoff berth in the East - and the opportunity to see James actually on the court in the first round of the playoffs.

Brown, who sat out James, Mo Williams and Antawn Jamison on Friday in a 116-113 loss to Indiana, isn't the only coach of a top-seeded team holding out his best player. Phil Jackson did it with Kobe Bryant on Thursday in a loss to Denver. Those teams battling the Nuggets for that critical No. 2 seed in the West (it means you avoid the defending champion Lakers until the conference finals) must have been thrilled to see Denver not have to deal with Bryant.

The reasoning behind resting stars in the final few games of the regular season is fairly obvious. With long playoff runs anticipated, along with a heavy workload of minutes ahead, this is a time for a team to allow its most important player to recharge his battery and heal up any nagging physical issues. Preventing a star player from being injured in a meaningless game at the end of the season is a good goal, too.

But there are two concerns here. First, any break from the game can result in a lost edge and rhythm, which is the worst thing that can happen to a player going into the playoffs. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, it is absolutely unfair to the teams still battling for playoff positions or, in the case of the Bulls and Raptors, playoff berths.

Leave it to Stan Van Gundy to have the best perspective on things. Van Gundy, for one, is not about having stars sit out any games for any reason.

"Look, if you're going to coach worried about injuries, don't play your guys at all ever," Van Gundy said in a veiled shot at Brown and Jackson. "Sit 'em for 82 games all year. Don't have 'em practice. Don't have 'em play.''

"What's the difference? Do their injury chances go up tonight as opposed to playing last week?" he continued. "Every time you play, yeah, you have a chance of getting hurt. I'm not going to sit a guy for 12 days and I don't think those guys are going to sit their guys for 12 days, either. And so if they come back and play in the last game and get hurt, what, was that a mistake? I'm not ever going to run in fear of injuries."

Of course Van Gundy's Magic still has something to play for, which is good reason to not sit out his top players, such as Dwight Howard and Jameer Nelson. Orlando is looking to finish with a better record than the Lakers to claim home-court advantage in the NBA Finals.