Returning players need to reestablish peak fitness as quickly as possible, but working into shape too quickly could risk injury. A playoff team must be able to leverage its talents in creative, unpredictable ways — but being too creative before players have a chance to review the basics might generate more confusion than success. Coaches and players mostly want to return to normality as quickly as possible — but what if trying to approximate normality only places more emphasis on the abnormal? “We are creatures of habit, and our environment has been shaken up,” Vogel said. “It’s really going to be a balancing act.”