1) Less Travis Outlaw, more Batum 2) More Rudy, less whomever needs to sit to get Rudy minutes. What would you change?
No more giving Scola/Landry wide open jumpers in the first half. I'm feeling pretty confident in a Blazers win in game 4.
This plus more using Roy as a decoy for the first 3 quarters. Corner 3s all night long with Roy at the point on the pick and roll up top, swing to the weak side, Batum and Rudy rain 3s all night.
1. If the offense is stagnant, play Rodriguez. 2. Short chain on Outlaw for mistakes. 3. More passing. 4. Go to Greg in the post more.
I would have Batum pick a fight with Ron Artest in the first quarter. If we are going to get 0 out of him, he might as well do something positive.
Play Outlaw five minutes. If he isn't hot, shut him down for the night. Use the Blake/Fernandez/Roy lineup throughout the fourth quarter. Run more pick and rolls with Oden and Blake. Oden really got in Yao's head there for a little while. And the more you involve Oden in the offense, the less likely refs are going to ding him for insanely stupid fouls. It's the NBA, and exciting dunkers just don't foul out much.
Blazers can even it up if they: 1) Play Yao as they have been 2) Drive in (draw contact) 3) Stop repeating the same pick and roll in crunch time, more offensive plays - more ball movement.
1. It will continue. 2. They won't, outside of maybe Brandon Roy. Steve Blake plays like he's playing against zombies and doesn't want them to get their fluids on him. He's scared to drive. 3. Unfortunately Nate McMillan is our coach and he has about as much creativity as Carrot Top does without props.
If Outlaw misses his first couple of shots, bench him for the rest of the game. It's proven that he will be useless.
Travis can't get us a game winner if the other team has 4 points more than us because Travis failed to play at a professional level the 3 prior quarters.
I'd keep Oden on the bench, him picking up early fouls would be disatrous. Leave him on the bench and hope he splits his minutes, hakf Yao, half against Yao's backup. The change I would make is starting Rudy at SF and moving Batum to the bench. We need Rudy offensively to help ease open up the paint for LMA and Roy, Batum isn't a bad shooter but Rudy makes the defense pay attention. Defensively, Artest hasn't really taken advantage of one skinny defender in Batum, I don't see him scoring on Rudy either. Besides, Artest trying to go one on one is what we want the Rockets to do offensively, better him shooting than Yao or Scola. Then you can have Batum coming off the bench to put an end to Wafer's fun in this series.
lol And yea from the looks of things stopping Yao will continue, but I'm sure Rockets are going to be changing their ways after such a weak win (which I think would be spreading out offense to get Yao a BIT more involved) Man, honestly - I'm not saying shit about what will happen next game and all because I know everyone is gonna be wrong. Rockets/Blazers series is an unpredictable one, makes it interesting though!
More Rudy, more Batum... less Outlaw, less Frye... and less bullshit calls and less crying by Rick and the rest of the Rockets.
I agree, I think it's easy for most here to say the next game is a Blazers win, but I don't think it's a given at all.
