Late-game timeouts present coaches with unique opportunities to substitute offense for defense, or vice versa, knowing that the players they insert won't be needed for a possession at the other end.

The way to do this correctly was illustrated by Adelman, whose Rockets had a two-point lead with 23 seconds left against Portland and still had two timeouts in his pocket. Knowing darn well that he'd use one of them if the Blazers scored, he took Yao Ming and Carl Landry out of the game and put in Aaron Brooks and Chuck Hayes.