In last night’s victory over the Phoenix Suns, point guard Derek Fisher started his 525th consecutive regular season game. Fisher is the active leader in consecutive games played at the moment, but has seen his playing time begin to diminish.
Fisher played just 25 minutes Friday night against Phoenix, but that was after only playing 19 minutes in each of their two previous games. According to Mike Bresnahan of the L.A. Times, coach Mike Brown has already talked to Fisher about the possibility of his playing time decreasing this season.
“Yeah, I talked to him,” Brown said Friday. “Before Steve Blake got hurt, [Blake] was finishing games for us. I just felt that’s the direction that I needed to go with this team.”
The injury Brown is referring to was a rib injury that sidelined Blake for 13 games. Prior to Friday’s game, Fisher was averaging 5.1 points and shooting 35.2 percent while Blake was averaging 6.9 points and shooting 36.9 percent.
Brown went on to say that ideally he would like to see Fisher play 22 minutes per game, but that it isn’t always going to work out that way. Still, Fisher’s rapidly decreasing minutes are a sign of his decreasing production as well. His 5.1 points per game average is the lowest since his rookie season when he averaged just 3.9 points per game.