if you have a virginal win column, Boston's your date.

[Kestutis.Kveraga@Dartmouth.EDU (Kestutis Kveraga)]

For a guy with Ricky's coaching credentials, his ability to shoot himself in the foot is amazing. It typically goes like this:
The starters are kicking the other guys'  butts, so Ricky decides to make a game out of it and makes an en masse substitution. The "Bomb(ed) squad" receives instructions to run around like beheaded chicken and tire themselves out, while pretending to play defense and giving up uncontested layups. Being true Pitino disciples, they dutifully do just that and soon are so tired that they couldn't make a shot if the basket was as big as one of those backyard trampolines. (That is, if they could get a decent shot, which they can't because Barros is their "point guard". )   By that point, the crowd is in the game, and Ricky's feeling like he's back at Kentucky and screaming "good shot"  whenever one of the Wildca.., er, Celtics takes a three-pointer while they're in the midst of a 4-on-1 break. 

Come on, we have NO business losing to these Bulls, and especially not when the starters are playing so well. If Ricky hadn't decided to ice the first unit on the bench and start a bricklayers convention (15% shooting for the second unit), we would've blown the Bulls out.
If you just must let the bench play, despite having the next 3 days off, why not at least try all your options (namely, Ellison and Overton) when the other bench guys are clanking it up to the tune of 3 for 20? And, I guess, Rick's assurance that "we are going to press out of strength this year" really means something other than what I thought it did: namely,  that they're going to press themselves right out of their strengths. I mean, who on this Chicago team cannot be contained by a regular man-to-man defense (other than Hoiberg)? Hello?!? 
Isn't the goal here to conserve as much energy as possible while tiring the other guys out, not the other way around? Or is Ricky just trying to give his guys a workout?

I guess the most charitable interpretation of Rick's coaching in this game was that he lost the game for didactic purposes, by letting the bench try to work out their problems in real time, thereby creating a tough game for his starters out of what was a blowout in the making.