COACHES SHARE RESPONSE: WHOSE RESPONSIBILITY IS IT?

Thank you to the coaches that took the time to share their thoughts with other coaches.  Check back again next week and your thoughts will be welcomed on our next topic.

Coaches Share question:  Let's say Team X has a reasonably comfortable lead in the second half of a game.  The coach of the team with the lead substitutes players into the game that have not played yet.  Do you feel the team with the lead should hold the ball a little bit before looking to score so it doesn't appear they are running up the score?  Or do these players deserve to play the game like the players in the regular rotation get to play?  SIDE NOTE:  Let's assume the team with the lead is not a full court pressing team for the sake of the discussion.

"Team X is doing the right thing by putting players into the game whom have not yet played, you cant tell players who work just as hard in practice as the starters to just pass the ball around, they deserve to be able to showcase there skills and prove to there coach they deserve more playing time with the regulars and this is a way of doing that."
 ~Coach Ken Lessig/Head Coach Northgate HS/Womens Basketball

"I feel the only thing that should be be held in check is any type of full court pressure or trapping.  Other than that your substitutes should be allowed to play the game the same way as the team's philosophy.  I don't think a team, substitutes or not, should ever have to change their style of play no matter what the size of the lead or the time left in the game (except for full court pressure or trapping)."
~Coach B (High School Boys Coach from IL) 

"All of the coaches I've ever worked with say "do what you do". I think you should out in your backups but if they are running the offense and scoring then there isn't much you can do. We had an example of that this past year. We were up big on a team. And jumped out of our half court trap. A big percentage of our offense comes from that defense. We went back into our match up zone. While the other team picked up offensively, we failed to score in the 4th quarter. I bothered our head coach until our next game. He spent the next few days telling me, "do what you do". And what we did was our half court trap."
~Coach K.T.

"I don't think the leading team should change their game plan at all. The substitutes wouldn't want to be treated any different from the starters. In fact, the players might regard it as a little disrespectful to slow the ball down and 'take it easy on them'. The substitutes need to get use to the real game if they won't to improve to that level."
~Coach Mac. http://www.basketballforcoaches.com

"You let the subs play - they deserve the opportunity to get out there and show what they can do - lead or not."
~Coach John Carrier (MN)

"The coach of the team ahead has to be careful because I've been at this long enough to know that what goes around, comes around. I do feel every single player on the roster has the right to play the way the coach expects.  Each player deserves that.  But there is a point where you don't want to cross that line and look like you're trying to run up the score."
~Coach B.W.