http://www.columbian.com/article/20081214/BLOGS05/812139976 As usual Brian Hendrickson does some interesting number crunching and comes up with a pretty good explanation. It's not so much that Roy has been freezing his teammates out in the last 3 losses, it's that when the bench stinks Roy has to do more to fill in the gaps. Here's to hoping the white unit shoots 48% from the floor and Brandon gets 22 points tonight.
My thoughts are that it isn't because Roy scores 30+ that we aren't performing well. What it is, is Roy has to score 30+ BECAUSE our team isn't performing well, thus why we lose. I think if Roy stayed at his average in the last 3 games, we would have lost by a good amt. more.
I said after the Orlando game that we lost it because they shot the 3 like crazy and we shot it like crap. I was told that Travis lost us the game. 2 games later - the same pattern is shown. Hmmm...
If BRoy hadn't scored 30+ in these past few games, we would have lost by 10! The bench hasn't pulled it's own weight recently, they need to step up!
I think we rely too much on the 3 ball. I just don't know what other option we have at this point. Brandon is our only guy that can create his own shot (well, sometimes Rudy can) When the 3's aren't falling, Roy is forced to take over the offense. Alridge is good for a few post ups/game, but he often drifts out to the perimeter. Truthfully, he's just not a dominant post player. Servicable? Yes. But not dominant. Where else are you going to go late in games when nobody else is knocking down perimeter shots? That's why Brandon has been shooting so much people. I think we will be up/down all year because of this. When we shoot well, we'll look like world champs. When we don't, we'll look terrible. UNLESS, Brandon goes off and keeps us in these types of games.
It's true that Brandon has been keeping us in games of late when his teammates struggled. However, I see one big weakness that Brandon needs to work on still, and that is learning how to involve teammates even when he's in "take over the game" mode. The great players are so much more effective because you can't totally focus on them even when they're killing you every time down the court. Send 2 or more guys their way and they'll burn you with the pass... Brandon is missing the open guy a lot in this scoring spree of his. How much of that is lack of confidence in his slumping teammates I'm not sure. As difficult as he is to guard now, he'd be so much better if the opponent didn't have the luxury of pretty much knowing what's going to happen.
The article overlooks THE most important reason the Blazers tend to lose when Roy scores 30, or more, points - defense. Specifically, the inability to get a defensive stop when the game is on the line. The Blazers offense is fine. Roy scoring 30+ does absolutely nothing to hurt the team's offense. In fact, it helps it. In games where Roy scores 30+ points, the team has averaged 101.6 points. If you play halfway decent defense, that's more than enough to win on most nights. The problem is, in those same five games, they've given up 104.8 points per game. You don't win a lot of games in the NBA these days when you give up 105 points. In fact, this season, the Blazers are 0 - 6 when they give up 100, or more, points. Specifically, they couldn't stop Orlando from scoring in the last two minutes of that loss, and they couldn't stop the Clippers from scoring at the end of regulation, or in either overtime. If not for Roy, the game wouldn't have gone to the second overtime (and probably not even the first). Brandon Roy scoring 30+ is a good thing. The team giving up 100+ is a bad thing. It's as simple as that. BNM
There may be correlation between those things, namely pace. When the team plays a much faster pace, Roy scores more, the Blazers score more and the opponent scores more too. But, of course, correlation isn't causation. The most you can say is that Roy scoring 30+ has been an indicator...of the team's pace being faster, which hasn't been beneficial to them so far based on the results (if, in fact, it is true that the team has been playing at a higher pace in those games, as I suspect). It doesn't mean that Roy scoring 30+, itself, is a bad thing or causes losing. Causation is being reversed. An effect that has hurt the Blazers is leading to Roy scoring a lot, rather than Roy scoring a lot leading to an effect that has hurt the Blazers.
Also, with that small of a sample size (5 games), the team's scoring average is rather distorted by overtimes.
If everyone's having a bad game or we're in a tough bind, you expect your superstar to step up and help the team get the win. Nothing wrong with Roy scoring 30+ in that situation. Our problem wasn't Roy scoring 38 last game. It was him not scoring enough! In the second overtime, we went back to LMA when we should have been feeding Roy.
As is Brandon's own individual scoring - two of his five 30+ performances came in double overtime games. BNM
Lots of others have posted the obvious: Roy scoring a lot isn't necessarily bad. It's just a reflection on lots of other aspects of how the Blazers play during losses. The interesting question this really raises to me is this: Could Roy be a legit 28-30 ppg scorer every night? I've never thought of him in that role, mostly because I just didn't think he had the skill. It takes some serious talent to put up those kinds of points over a full season. Only 4 guys right now are averaging over 25 ppg (Wade, James, Dirk, Bryant.) Wade is on track to win the scoring title at 28 ppg. Does Roy have the talent to be one of the top 2 or 3 scorers in the entire league? Lots of people will likely say, "It doesn't matter. We don't want him to." But I'm not sure that's the truth. If you have a Kobe Bryant/LeBron James/Michael Jordan-level scorer on your team, do you really want him to be averaging 20 ppg playing "the team game," or do you want him scaring the utter crap out of opponents on every single possession, because he's largely unstoppable.
I think that there are two issues here: 1. Can Roy score that much every night? - I would have said no last year - but I am willing to admit that as much as I appreciated his game - I, too, did not realize how good he is. He has taken over this year almost night in night out at will - so I would say that the talent, skill and mental ability to be a prolific scorer is there and I should be ashamed I did not accept it. 2. Is it a good thing? - I am going to say that it is not a good thing because it seems to be really hard on him physically. I was at the RG for the Clippers game and it was clear that he was the best player on the court, by far. He scored the huge amount of points while also trying to get everyone else involved all night long - it might have not really been reflected in his assist numbers because a lot of these passes ended as bricks by other players - but he was playing his usual rounded Roy game all night long - he just ran out of steam in the 2nd OT. Brandon is at his best when he is "fresh" at the end of the game to put the W on the side where God and Country (or Darwin, if you are in the other camp) intended it to be. Being a prolific scorer is just something that takes way too much out of him - when he is also the primary play-maker and trying to set everyone else. Maybe - if he was not so determined to get easy buckets for anyone else and just concentrate on being a zBo like black-hole that just scores - he would be able to do it night in and night out without the physical punishment - but I think it is better for the team overall when he is not forced to be the volume scorer he had to be in the last 3 games.
Right, but I was referring to your statement, "In games where Roy scores 30+ points, the team has averaged 101.6 points. If you play halfway decent defense, that's more than enough to win on most nights." That's not entirely true when you factor in the overtimes.
Right. This is pretty much the point of the article. Roy scoring 30+ is the canary in the coal mine that the rest of the team is off.
Of course, if they had played better defense in regulation, those games would not have went to overtime. I was at the Clipps game, and when Blake missed those FTs, I just KNEW the Clippers were going to hit a 3 and send it to overtime. But, I see your point. The other high scoring game of the 5 was the Orlando loss when the Blazers gave up 9 points, all on 3-pointers, in the last two minutes of the game. I also recall Toronto hitting multiple 3s near the end of regulation and Calderon and Roy trading 3s at the end of the 1st overtime in that game. The Blazers seem to have a problem defending the perimeter in these close games. This weakness allows teams like Orlando, with multiple 3-point threats, to come back from 8 down in the final two minutes and steal a game the Blazers should have won. They also gave up 30 points to Toronto in the 4th quarter of that double overtime loss back in January, and then another 23 points in the two overtimes. The Blazers interior defense has gotten better with the addition of Greg Oden, but the perimeter defense still needs improvement. That's a more significant long term concern than how many points Brandon Roy scores. BNM
