Should Rondo have been playing during garbage time to extend the streak?

Rondo picked up his 10th assist with 51 seconds left. Should he have been playing?

The only exciting part about the Celtics meltdown in Motown earlier tonight, was whether or not Rajon Rondo would reach 10 assists for the 34th consecutive regular season game. Rondo had just seven assists to his credit with under five minutes to go before picking up the final three as the Celtics finished off their 103-83 loss to the Pistons. It was very clear that Rondo was in the game for one reason, and one reason only - extending the streak. After the game Doc admitted as much.

"Why not? The press keeps talking about it, so I figured I would give him a shot at it. The funny thing was that the harder we tried, the worse we got at it.

Ok so it's clear that Doc is all in on the streak. But the question is, should he be? There is an argument to be made that Rondo, by far the Celtics best player, shouldn't be playing garbage time minutes during the 11th game of what could end up being a 100+ game season. He is the engine that makes the entire team run, and every minute you have him play could potentially wear him down down the line.

My view? Play the man as much as it takes to keep this party going. This streak is awesome, and Rondo's coach and teammates want the streak to continue as much, if not more, than Rondo does himself, which I find very cool. I mean take another look at the names ahead of Rondo on the list. 1. Magic Johnson and 2. John Stockton. This is (most likely) Rondo's best chance at a very cool piece of NBA history, and a chance to surpass the two greatest point guards in the history of the sport in at least one category. While I understand the flip side, why we should be conserving #9's energy as much as possible, I just don't think a handful of minutes tonight will make the difference come Spring time. Eventually the streak will either end on it's own, or Rondo will break the record, but until then the C's should do what it takes (within reason of course) to make sure it continues. Rondo deserves that much.

The bigger streak related issue for me tonight? Detroit's official scorer. I mean dude, Rondo literally set up Bass with a wide open jumper early in the 1st quarter, and you don't give the man an assist? What in the sweet hell was that about? I mean it hasn't been much more than 24 hours since Mark spoke about home court advantage playing a role in the streak, and tonight we saw the opposite. Road court disadvantage. Or maybe it was simply ineptitude? Either way clean that shit up Detroit.

P.S. Chris Wilcox you are officially off the hook for mishandling that dunk attempt off a perfect pass from Rondo. That would have sucked if Rondo finished with 9 dimes.

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