Miller. (Hed pitched 1⅓ innings on Friday.) Wh

MIAMI -- Players have an open disdain for back-to-back games in the regular season, even while understanding theres no way around them when trying to wedge 82 games into 170 days.So some teams are spending part of this preseason trying to get ready.NBA teams get to largely dictate their own preseason schedule, and nine clubs opted to have at least one set of back-to-back games on their exhibition slate. Most are going on this weekend, with five teams -- Toronto, Cleveland, Miami, Golden State and Chicago -- playing either the first or second night of a back-to-back on Friday.Its good practice for us, Toronto coach Dwane Casey said. We want to approach it the way were going to approach it a few weeks from now, because theyre coming. And so the way we mentally approach back-to-backs ... weve got to get excited about it. Even though deep down we know its exhibition, weve got to get into a mindset of how do we prepare mentally, how do we prepare physically.Most teams around the league avoided them entirely. And Torontos isnt a true back-to-back, per se -- the Raptors were playing Cleveland on Thursday, then stepping out of the NBA realm to play the Argentinian club San Lorenzo on Friday.The Heat and the Los Angeles Clippers are subjecting themselves to preseason back-to-backs twice. And it could be argued the Heat are playing three of the dreaded sets, when factoring in their open scrimmage on Monday night that was the prequel to Tuesdays preseason game against Brooklyn.I want our guys to feel a lot of different situations, Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said.Clippers coach Doc Rivers said he didnt mind them since they allow for more practice time, and he structured his schedule accordingly. Outside of his back-to-backs on Oct. 4 and 5 and Oct. 17 and 18, his team plays only twice during the 11-day span in between.I just think eight games is too many for guys, Rivers said. I think this is nice. You play guys minutes, almost all of them. You give some guys a rest in some of them. I think its good.The Heat, who open their first back-to-back in San Antonio on Friday, have two in the span of a week. That closely mirrors something that happens during the course of the regular season. The NBA has made strides in recent years to reduce how many times each club has to endure games on consecutive nights -- or the even-more-dreaded four-games-in-five-days, something thats now a rarity.Last year I hated it in the preseason, said Heat forward Justise Winslow, entering his second season. But now I realize the purpose of it, just so guys can feel it, feel what it feels like mentally and physically.Minnesota plays its preseason back-to-back on Saturday and Sunday. The other two teams with them on their exhibition schedule are Charlotte and New York, clubs that decided put them toward the end of their preseason slate.Knicks coach Jeff Hornacek said it provides him with a chance to evaluate some players whose roles might still be unclear -- and that, as one might expect, stars like Carmelo Anthony wont log big minutes like they would in the regular season.I dont really anticipate playing Carmelo 35 minutes one night and 35 minutes the next, Hornacek said. So it might give an opportunity to some of these other guys, especially there are some of these guys trying to make the roster. Give them a little more playing time in those back-to-back situations to see what would happen if they were on your team. So for evaluation purposes its good but playing wise, you try not to kill these guys early.---AP Basketball Writer Brian Mahoney in New York contributed to this report.Nike Air Max Prezzi Bassi . -- Brandon Jennings made the most of his first game with the Detroit Pistons on Sunday night. Air Max 720 Uomo Saldi . The Oilers come in having lost five in a row (0-4-1) and 16 of their last 20 games, dropping a 2-1 decision to the Vancouver Canucks on Tuesday. http://www.airmaxscarpescontate.it/scarpe-air-max-97-prezzo-basso.html . Defencemen Drew Doughty, Shea Weber and forward Ryan Getzlaf also scored for the Canadians, who started their gold-medal defence 2-0. Goalie Roberto Luongo, getting the call in place of Game 1 starter Carey Price, was solid when needed in making 23 saves for the shutout. Vapormax Prezzo Basso . John Tavares, Thomas Vanek and Kyle Okposo were also being counted on to slow down sizzling Rangers forward Rick Nash. That plan didnt go so well early. Vapormax Saldi . The giant slalom world champion slipped during her first run in the morning, landing on her back and then twisting forward before getting her leg caught in the protective material on the side of the slope.Cubs fan, Indians fan, neutral observer, homesick beat writer, wayward channel surfer, sleepy dog -- doesnt matter who you are, or why youre with us this October. When Joe Maddon walked out to the mound in the seventh inning Sunday night, pointed his left hand to the bullpen, and summoned hell and fire and filth and chaos into the fifth game of the World Series, you felt things.You felt confidence. You felt fear. You felt like you were seeing baseball players pushed to the brink of their abilities, and that something just might snap. You felt like a manager was choosing this moment to make a final stand. It was Neo stopping bullets, it was Anton Chigurh flipping a coin, it was Rocky drinking raw eggs, it was Danny Ocean laying out the plan. I submit that those feelings, our feelings, are going to make baseball managers smarter in the next 30 years than they have been in the past 30, because those feelings are every person on the fields feelings, too.Some background: What Maddon did -- bringing in his closer, Aroldis Chapman, to protect a one-run lead for eight whole outs -- is not unprecedented. I have in my hands a list of everything that has ever happened in a baseball game, and it says here that just two and a half weeks ago the Dodgers brought Kenley Jansen into the seventh inning to try to save Game 4 of the National League Championship Series. (He gassed out, setting up Clayton Kershaws save.) Brad Lidge attempted an eight-out save in the 2004 NLDS (but blew it), and there was Norm Charlton in the 95 American League Division Series (blew it), and, well, if you go back to the 1970s Rollie Fingers ...The list of recent examples drops off quickly, because this is an unconventional move. Controversial, even. It might have even been controversial within the small group of people standing on the mound at Wrigley Field when Joe Maddon handed over the baseball. Coming in to get a save of even four outs, Chapman said earlier this year, is not my favorite thing. To which Maddon said at the time, I did not know that. Not that it would matter.If its not Chapmans favorite thing, though, I suspect it is every one of his teammates favorite thing. I suspect every one of them was cheering.A lot of the decisions analysts wish teams would make are complicated sells. For instance, over the past few offseasons Ive spent a lot of time arguing against managers who go to their aces on short rest in the postseason, even in must-win games. The argument is simple: We have many dozens of examples of great pitchers going on short rest in recent years, and a convincing record of them being much worse than aces in those starts. So much worse that, for most pitching staffs, the fourth starter is probably a better option than a tired ace. (Kluber and the Indians three-man rotation are excepted.)This is a simple argument, but a complicated sell, because its an emotionally unappealing one. I can try to convince you with what the Greeks called Logos -- a logical appeal -- or I can try to convince you with what they called Ethos -- my sterling character -- but I will lose the argument soundly if it comes down to Pathos: emotional appeal. Its just more emotionally satisfying to go with the ace. The team wants it, the ace wants it, the fans want it -- the manager wants it.With Chapman in the seventh, though, I dont need charts with an appendix explaining leverage index to convince anybody. The argument is simple -- the game is on the line, and Chapman is the best, most exciting, most dominant, most intimidating option we have -- and so, too, is the sell: Wouldnt it be fun to see him here? You dont have to convince anybody to eat their dessert, and you dont have to convince them that Chapmans good and fun as heck.Maddons quote from August -- not that it matters -- is great, but for many managers, it does matter. For one thing, rigid and clear bullpen roles are often necessary for getting through a long season. They limit how often a reliever has to warm up for a game he isnt called into, they help relievers manage the emotions of exhausting high-leverage work. The hierarchy of the roles might have some benefit to the workplace politics, and so on.But managers over the past three decades havent just preferred rigid roles in their bullpens. Theyve built those roles around the save statistic. They do this in ways that are almost farcical sometimes: Not bringing the best reliever into the ninth inning of a tie game on the road, when a save situation might emerge later, but bringing him intto the ninth inning of a tie game at home, because a save has become impossible.dddddddddddd Or immediately bringing a closer into a five-run game with two outs in the ninth once the tying run is on deck -- that being, by the rulebook, a save situation, even though its also roughly 99.4 percent likely that this close game has already been decided.Theres nothing in it personally for the manager to collect his closer saves, and it seems suspicious that a half-century-old definition of a close game perfectly aligns with how almost every manager today determines closeness. So why do they follow the saves rules so close? They manage for the save because theyre managing people, and the people -- the closer and his teammates -- want to see him get those saves. To convince him otherwise, you can try Logos or you can try Ethos, but its probably going to require Pathos most of all. And if we start seeing enough games like this -- where its obvious that everybody is having fun, and where it works -- well see more of them. Mostly in the postseason, when the schedule allows it and the stakes demand it, but more frequently in the regular season so that relievers are prepared to do it in October.Maddon, for his part, prepared Chapman early in the day for what hed be asked to do. He talked to him before the game and told the closer he should be ready for the seventh inning. Chapman, once he took over, strutted around the mound and cheered along with the rest of Wrigley Field, clapping his fist into his glove after outs. When he ended the eighth with a strikeout -- stranding the tying run at third -- he straightened up and stood perfectly still for just a moment, as though posing. As though posing for a statue. As though posing to be remembered as a god.He seemed to be in good spirits after the game:He had reason to be happy. Besides the win, he starred in the most dramatic moments of this Series, and did something Mariano Rivera, Billy Wagner, Craig Kimbrel and Francisco Rodriguez never did. He saved not only the Cubs but the Series itself.Until Game 5, this Series had been one of the least memorable in recent history. In the past decade, 54 individual World Series games had been played before Sunday. By leverage index -- a measure for the relative stakes of each plate appearance -- three of this years games were snoozers, with two ranking in the bottom 10. Worse, the Indians were threatening to end the Series at five games. There might have been some non-Clevelanders exhausted enough to root for this outcome, but it would have guaranteed one of the most forgettable Series in recent decades.When Chapman came in, it meant that the Cubs would push this back to Cleveland for a sixth game, or the Indians would at least have to produce an instant classic to seal the victory. From an entertainment perspective if youre a baseball fan or looking to become a baseball fan, it was wonderful tonight, Maddon said after the game.If there was anything it was missing, from an entertainment perspective, it was Andrew Miller, for which we might also credit the natural human desire to want to see the best pitcher in the game at all times. On Saturday, Francona went to Miller in the seventh inning, with Cleveland up by three. It was probably an overreach -- with that sort of lead, and Miller perhaps running on fumes after a long and extraordinary month. It might have paid to gamble on Dan Otero or another reliever to try to avoid using Miller. (Hed pitched 1⅓ innings on Friday.) When Cleveland scored three more runs in the bottom of the seventh, Francona still sent him back out for the eighth, and he ultimately threw 27 pitches in a relative blowout. Miller was available on Sunday, but certainly not for one of the 46-pitch outings that hes built his legend around this month. Had he been -- had he taken Saturday off entirely -- its not inconceivable that Francona could have gotten as many as six innings out of Miller and Cody Allen, rather than trying to get Trevor Bauer through the fourth inning.Alas, that wasnt an option. More likely, Allen and Miller could have handled three or four at the most. Its hard to be too mad at Francona, though. Bringing in Miller on Saturday probably felt like putting a boot on the Cubs in Game 4. Probably felt good. When you have an Andrew Miller -- or an Aroldis Chapman -- any sane person wants to use him until he cant. ' ' '