"Kevin McHale said before the game even began that he really did not want to keep playing Kyle Lowry 41 minutes.

He didn't. He played him 49.

McHale gambled that with a few extra minutes with Lowry and Kevin Martin on the floor to start the fourth quarter he could put the lead out to a safe 14. It did not work out that way. The game got tight and McHale did not dare sit Lowry again. He stuck with Martin, too. They played a combined 180 minutes in two days.

Still, if you go back to his pregame plan, one can assume he is aware that Lowry's workload can't continue to top 40 minutes in the lockout-compressed schedule."