Anybody else notice the lack of playing time for Marquis Daniels the past couple of games? The veteran role player has played sparingly, mostly in garbage time like in last night's victory over the Raptors.
Here are the minutes in the last three games for the nine-year veteran out of Auburn.
Jan. 29 vs. Cleveland: 2:48 of playing time, 0 points.
Jan. 31 vs. Cleveland: DNP
Feb. 1 vs. Toronto: 4:43 of playing time, 4 points
It's become pretty clear that Daniels has slipped down the bench with players like E'Twuan Moore, Avery Bradley and most notably Sasha Pavlovic gaining minutes with Rajon Rondo and other players missing time with various bumps and bruises.
Pavlovic is an interesting player to watch going forward. We all remember him from his Cleveland days when he would show off decent range when LeBron James barreled his way to the hoop, but after bouncing around the NBA he may have hit the crossroads of his career, and ESPN Boston's Chris Forsberg had some insight into that.
The Suns waived him that September and Pavlovic ended up in Minnesota, where his stats were career lows (3.7 points, 12.4 minutes per game in 71 appearances). Pavlovic's confidence never quite recovered as he bounced between the New Orleans Hornets and Dallas Mavericks on 10-day contracts before being signed by swingman-craving Boston on March 3.
Forsberg had some good quotes from Doc Rivers about the confidence issues that Pavlovic has been plagued with.
"He’s a good, solid player that, for whatever reason, has been up and down with himself," Rivers said. "I think he’s more hard on himself than the coaches probably."
"With Sasha, you just never know," Rivers said. "You just want him to stay in the positive place that he’s playing in -- it’s a good place."
Pavlovic tallied the second most minutes of the season last night with 21:26 off the bench and hit a pair of 3-pointers. It appears he's leapfrogged over Daniels for now as the person to spell Paul Pierce and Ray Allen, but as we all know this season, anything can happen between now and the Friday night's game against the Knicks.