"From everything I've read..."

Huh? So Van Gundy thinks rest doesn't benefit performance? There's an absolute shitload of information that says the complete opposite.

Also comparing Jordan to everyone else is pretty fucking stupid.

When he pointed out that nobody ever says Westbrook was tired that really stopped Lowe in his tracks.

I would not compare Westbrook's energy level to that of a normal human.

JVG is a treasure. Stop this.

Search your feelings.

He also never criticizes coaches. I get he used to be one (and still is for the USA team), but goodness.

Fine, listen to Zach and his nerd takes with his nerd voice.

Okay, okay. Of course rest matters. What I agreed with was his specific point about using lack of rest as an ex post narrative after a team or player has a bad game/series. Saying that Harden, who appears to rest approximately half the time he's on the floor anyway, was atrocious in Game 6 versus the Spurs or that the Rockets as a team couldn't make a shot in the second half of game 7 last year because they didn't rest enough during the regular season seems to be much closer to an excuse than an explanation.

Yes, being fatigued can actually be the causal mechanism for poor performance, but it's possible that we go too quickly to that conclusion when other reasons are as and often more likely, like they just had a bad game, the opponent had a particular good game, the opponent is simply better, it was an unfavorable matchup, random variation, etc. This is especially likely if there isn't a valid reason to believe the other team was more rested than the losing team. I took his criticism as being about the laziness of that narrative by the numbers type of journalism that is so common today. That's what I agreed with, not a foolish implication that rest isn't relevant.