“Rest versus Rust” is a classic sports debate. Is it better for a team to have a bunch of days off to heal all of its nagging wounds, or is it more beneficial to solider through and keep playing while momentum is still on your side? New York Knicks and Oklahoma City Thunder fans are currently wrestling with this, although they have little say over the matter. It is rest that their beloved teams will get, and we will soon find out whether or not rust is a result of this rest.
The Knicks swept the 76ers in the second round of the NBA playoffs and wrapped up that series this past Sunday (May 10). The Eastern Conference Finals will start on either Sunday, May 17, or Tuesday, May 19, depending on when the Pistons and Cavs complete their series (Game 6 is tonight in Cleveland).
So, Mike Brown’s squad will have had either six days or eight days in between games by the time the ECF tips off.
“I’ve been part of sweeps, I’ve been part of getting swept and been part of long layoffs and short turnarounds, so you worry about different stuff at different times,” Brown said this week. “Like, quick turnaround you’re like: ‘Oh my God, we can’t prepare. Oh my god, guys are tired.’ And long layoffs, you’re like, ‘oh my gosh, we got too much time, we’re not going to stay sharp.’”
Brown has seen both the benefits and the drawbacks from extended rest in the postseason.
In 2017, he served as interim head coach of the Golden State Warriors for a chunk of time while Steve Kerr was out due to complications from back surgery. The Warriors had seven days off in between the first and second round, and Golden State showed no rust in Game 1 of the semifinals as it blasted Utah, 106-94. The Dubs ended up sweeping the Jazz under Brown’s direction.
That same Warriors team had a whopping nine days off in between the Western Conference Finals and NBA Finals that year. Brown coached Game 1 of the Finals against the Cavs, and Golden State breezed to a 113-91 victory. The Warriors won that year’s Finals in five games.
On the flip side of this coin was Brown’s experience in the 2009 NBA Playoffs when he was head coach of the Cavs.
Cleveland swept the Hawks in the second round and had eight days off before meeting the Magic in the Eastern Conference Finals. The Cavs lost Game 1 to the Magic, 107-106, and wound up losing the series in six games.
This whole in-between rounds rest thing is now old hat for the Thunder. OKC has been wrapping up series’ on the short side for several years now under Mark Daigneault.
In the first round of this year’s playoffs, the Thunder swept the Suns. OKC had seven days to rest before it played the Lakers.
No rust was on display in Game 1 as the Thunder beat LA, 108-90. The Thunder wound up sweeping the series.
Last year, Daigneault’s Thunder ultimately won the title, but rust from long layoffs may have played a factor in OKC going down early in a couple of rounds.
The Thunder swept Memphis in the first round last year and then had eight days off before meeting the Nuggets for Game 1 of a second round series. Denver won Game 1, 121-119, but OKC won the series in seven.
Due to that series going long, the Thunder had just one day of rest before facing Minnesota in the WCF. OKC clearly carried over the momentum from the seventh game against the Nuggets to Game 1 against the Wolves as the Thunder won, 114-88. OKC won that series in five games.
Before the start of the 2025 NBA Finals, the Thunder had seven days off. Again, they struggled after a lengthy layoff as they fell in Game 1, 111-110. OKC won the series, though, in seven.
All told, long periods of rest don’t impact great NBA teams too much. According to Jared Schwartz of the NY Post, there has been 201 instances of teams having five or more days of rest in between series’. Those teams are 113-88 in Game 1s, and are 124-77 for the whole series.
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