It needs to be asked: Can we blame D'Antoni?

I think that it's the same as with Thibs and Rose in that yes, they were freak injuries, but there is no way playing the amount of minutes Rose played, or even Kobe (38 mpg at age 34!) played, had NO effect in these injuries.

I realize that Kobe needed to play almost full games because of his bone spur problem that he couldn't stiffen up, and because of the importance of each remaining game, but still D'antoni should have found a single minute in some game to try to get Kobe a breather.