While M.L.S. teams have failed to win the competition only once since 1996, lower-division clubs have often scored upsets, especially in earlier rounds when M.L.S. clubs have often played lineups composed of reserves and rested their usual starters.
Last year, at this point, we're playing a lineup that basically has nobody in it, that fights and competes and battles you every day for every inch of the field.
This may include, but is not limited to, the teams playing, the lineup, the umpires, the field, the start time, and the coaches.
That said, the flat-out brio of the revue-style show marks a most agreeable start to a five-play lineup that only gets starrier.
The first two offerings in the four-play lineup, "Grief" by Craig Lucas and Larryy's Charm" by Edward Allan Baker, are standard-issue living-room one-acts, not particularly memorable in either the writing or the performing.
So that's the six-play lineup in the subscription series.
Their rebounding success in Game 5 and in Game 2, when they also won playing smaller lineups, is likely to have an impact on Woodson's rotation.
It's an open secret that lottery teams sometimes tank by playing subpar lineups in order to increase their chances of getting higher draft picks.
I think we played the lineup that was right, for the lineup that they played.
But Brooks is the coach, and failing to make the adjustment from small ball back to his normally bruising lineup (OKC played small lineups for 35 minutes in Game 4) has become a glaring issue.
