Q&A with Mike Gorman

Here's some of the conversation to feed your pregame basketball jones, including his educated guess that rookie JaJuan Johnson (pictured) gets meaningful playing time tonight:

Doc Rivers has always done a great job of keeping the big picture in perspective, of resting guys even it costs them a game or two in the standings along the way. But it's going to be challenging this year if there are injuries -- Ray Allen has played more than 40 minutes in each of the first two games with Paul Pierce out -- even though it is absolutely imperative. I mean, the schedule gets brutal. There are 17 games in March alone. That's incredible:

Gorman: "Yeah, it is. Doc will be the first one to tell you that he goes into these games with a plan on how he's going to keep the minutes down, and then he gets involved in the game and he looks up and somebody's got 36, 37 minutes. This is virgin territory for both coaches and players on how they're going to take care of themselves and how they're best going to be cautious, I guess is the word now, so that when you get into that stretch in March and early April when you head to the playoffs, you have a complete team and not a team that's flat-out exhausted. It requires a change in style, and again, Doc will be the first one to tell you, he's probably going to have to play rookies more. A little inside information: We're sitting on the bus last night, about to leave Miami, and JaJuan Johnson gets on the bus and Doc looks up and says, "You gotta be ready tomorrow night." This is a difficult situation, the third game in four nights, back-to-back on the road, we checked into the hotel in New Orleans this morning at about 3:30 a.m. You're going to have to play kids, you're going to have to play guys, who in the usual year you'd go 30 or 40 games before you start working somebody into the lineup. Now you go 5 or 10 games.