This was the minority sentiment but still one that existed. I’ll say this: I even heard from some former players from a different era who were surprised Boylen called for practice. The NBA always has been and always will be a players’ league. And with the trends toward more rest and analyzing sleep habits and all the sports science that is used these days, practicing after a back-to-back and with three games in four days is extremely atypical. Plus, this can’t be emphasized enough: The practice served as the tipping point following a week in which — deep breath here — Boylen put his team through: two-hour-practices featuring wind sprints and pushups; showed them film clips in the locker room before they showered following his first game as coach; tried a five-man substitution not once but twice; and repeatedly called out his players’ toughness and conditioning. Just to clarify: None of these is a conventional tactic. And I’m not judging them. Boylen can do whatever he wants. I’m just pointing out that long practices with gassers at the end may be held in September. But they’re rarely held in December. Fred Hoiberg held an Oct. 28 practice following a back-to-back set of games and between three games in four days — following a road win, no less — and that was written about as an oddity as well. But it didn’t feature the same player backlash — or last beyond a one-day headline for us grunts — because it didn’t follow the same week that Boylen oversaw in his first week on the job.