Remember, it could be argued that Detroit doesn’t need these games that much, either. The Pistons have the top seed in the East, but they want to make sure they finish with the best record in the NBA, and that’s not yet been settled with San Antonio.

But, in this case, they had a 27-point lead at the half over the Cavs and carried most of that into the fourth quarter. What were their starters doing in there? Surely, the game was in hand, right? Did Tayshaun Prince and Ben Wallace need to play 34 minutes each in that game?

Why is anyone playing anywhere, for that matter? Okay, a couple of teams are fighting for position or to be in the playoffs at all. They’ve got to bring everything they have. But the picture is reasonably well settled. If you don’t want players to get hurt, don’t play them unless you have to.

That doesn’t go just for LeBron. Every member of a starting unit is valuable or he wouldn’t be a starter. So, do you sit the entire starting line-up. That’s the safest way to do it, after all. While you’re at it, if you’ve got a vital sixth man, you better hold him out, too. Can’t have anybody getting hurt, after all.

Sure, it’s easy to criticize a coach who plays a star in a meaningless game. But it’s wrong. And it’s especially wrong when it’s the sort of injury that LeBron suffered, the result of just landing wrong. That can happen anytime, even in practice.

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You don’t want it to happen, and usually it doesn’t. If it did happen more, coaches actually would sit everybody they could and send the cheerleaders out the last few games of the season. The reason they don’t do that is because there’s no defense against a freak injury.

LeBron was playing in that game because that’s what he’s paid to do. In the third quarter, he felt the team could still come back, and he’s a man who wants to win every game, even the ones that supposedly don’t mean anything. By the fourth quarter, if the score had stayed the same, I’m guessing he wouldn’t have played nearly as much.

You rest players, but you can’t protect them. If you coach scared, your team will play that way. It was a bad break, a real bad one, but it happened. There’s no one to blame and no sure way to avoid it. All LeBron and the Cavs can do now is deal with it.

And move on.

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