The most typical example was Harden's time with the Rockets. During the Playoffs, coach De'Anthony often used just an eight-man rotation.
As the schedule wore on, he'd cut it straight down to a seven-man rotation.
For the most crucial games, he'd even gone with just six players.
Thibodeau wasn't De'Anthony, and the Knicks weren't the Rockets, but in this crucial Game 7 battle, he still had to be more cautious.
So at the start of the second quarter, the Knicks only subbed out Jokic and Little Rivers, who was a little weaker on defense.
The other three positions were still occupied by the Main Force Lineup.
For the Raptors, Pang Bo had come off, and Hachimura had already left the game in the second half of the first quarter.
Dauding had come off too.
So at that moment, only Wang Yi and Zhang Jiacheng remained from the starting lineup.
Frank, who'd come on, wasn't capable of creating offense on his own.
Amir Khan and Kim Tae-hyun manned the paint.
Neither of them had much ability to create offense on their own, and neither could shoot threes.
Aleksandar would shut down Zhang Jiacheng, so this lineup's offense depended entirely on Wang Yi.
The Knicks opened with the ball.
King Arthur took it and muscled past Wang Yi, driving into the mid-range.
Then he passed to Aleksandar, who was cutting in from the other side.
Aleksandar caught the ball and sank an easy floater.
The Raptors inbounded, and Zhang Jiacheng dribbled slowly upcourt while Wang Yi headed to his usual spot along the right sideline.
Using a Backdoor Cut, he shook off King Arthur and the Knicks' backup point guard.
Zhang Jiacheng passed immediately.
After catching the ball, Wang Yi didn't shoot right away. He paused, drawing a three-man trap.
Then he