One question kind of answers itself, IMO

Will the starters accept fewer minutes and go hard on defense from the opening tip?

If it were a case of a player who was playing a normal number of minutes then getting their playing time cut you'd have a point, but we're dealing with players who played pretty much the entire game going down to what would be a normal number of minutes.

Since they were playing the whole game, they had to be careful in the 2nd quarter. With the backups on the bench, they are now free to be more aggressive, which is what I think they want be anyway. Mabrey wants to go for that ball on defense. Ogunbowale wants to drive harder to the basket. The players are looking to draw charges. It wasn't until halfway through the UT game last year that they finally figured out how to reign in their impulses to adjust to the injuries.