Foul Trouble

What is your philosophy on managing fouls?  If a player gets 2 fouls in the first half are they sitting the rest of the half?  Sitting unless you get an offense late in the first half? Start subbing offense for defense throughout the first half?  Do you let them play as long as they don't pick up a 3rd foul?

Your answer may be similar to mine...it depends.  Game situations and the player influences my decision.  Are we up?  Can we afford to wait until the 2nd half to play this kid?  Does the player have a history of foul trouble?

I tend to lean towards the Jeff Van Gundy school of thinking.  We're not in foul trouble until the player cannot go back in the game.  I'm not extreme enough that I will let a player foul out in the first half of a game, but at some point there's going to be a game I feel like we can't win without our best players on the floor and I don't want that to be the first game I leave players in the game in the first half after they've picked up a 2nd foul.  I'm also with JVG in wondering why its so much worse to pick up a 3rd foul with 1 min remaining in the first half as opposed to 1 min into the 2nd half.  If we look at a game in its entirety and lets use college for example with 40 total minutes.  We should protect a player from picking up a foul 19 minutes in the the game but at minute 21 its ok.  Doesn't seem like a huge difference in when they pick up their 3rd foul. 

Regardless of your thoughts its important to have a philosophy and stick with it.  If you're going to sit players for the entire 1st half when they pick up 2 fouls during the regular season, your team will not react well if you decide to play that particular player in the postseason with 2 fouls.  When you break set philosophies it can come across as desperate to your team.