I started this thread because there are other things in the article than just the playoff inexperience part which is already in the KP interview thread. I found a lot of what he said pretty interesting. http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playo...lumnist=stein_marc&page=PlayoffWinners-090616 And some mention of the Blazers under.......surprise. Inexperience.
The primary reasons Portland didn't advance were that Roy refused to push the ball (despite Nate's pleadiung with him to do so when we had the advantage and Roy turning the ball over late in the 4th quarters going 1 on 3 or 1 on 4, getting the ball stripped or blocked with wide open shooters he ignored. Nate is going to have to take control of the team next year if we're going to improve in some areas. The #2 reason was poor shooting by Outlaw. That said, Houston made a huge number of big shots when it counted. It was their series.
I see where he is coming from, but I think he is off a bit. Roy did force things too much, but it was more to do with nobody else that Nate would play being able to get to the rim. Ready or not, Bayless would have been great to see because like in other games he played, he takes the pressure off of Roy to dominate the ball so much. It's our offense people, don't blame the players. As for Nate pleading with Roy and anyone else to push the ball.....Bullshit. He can say it all he wants, but 9 years of slow paced basketball tells me he is 100% commited to not running.
^^^^ this ^^^^^ I have very, very little doubt in my mind that the series would have been very different if we had won game one. Would we have had to grind it out in 7 games??? Maybe. Probably. But I honestly believe we would have won. And we sure didnt lose game one strickly or even mainly because of tempo. What we did is go the through lumps and bruises that all young, untested playoffs teams deal with. There is almost no way to prepare for that experience. We also got to experience what a close out game is like when they won the series. These are valuable lessons that should not be overlooked.
It seems to me that Nate wants things both ways. One, he wants near total controll of what the team does on the offensive end. Two, he wants the team to speed up the pace. I don't think these are compatable desires. The team has to slow down in order to receive their instructions. Mike Brown too. Nate needs to let the players play a bit to make the game faster. Until he does that, the team will almost always be near the bottom of the league in overall pace.
We lost game one because we weren't fronting Yao. That's not playoff experience, it's not realizing what works against him. Yao played great the rest of the series, but only in game one was he unstoppable. If Nate would have fronted Yao in game one we could have won that game and possibly the series.
In the time outs, Nate pleaded with Roy to push the ball late, but he never did. That was reported by Harlow, Rice & Wheels during the game. We had great fast break opportunities that passed us by. The idea was to beat Yao down the court. Another thing- I do not down play the fact Roy is our best player and is greatly responsible for us making the playoffs. He simply made numerous poor decisions late in some of the games that probably lost the games for us. It's clearly evident on the tapes of the games.
Agreed. This team was just too pumped up, the crowd was ready for that Game 1, and I think they admitted later that they didn't do anything that was in their game plan. They could've said that to save face, but that Game 1 was atrocious. They looked scared as hell out there, while we went to the Brandon ISO play already midway through the first quarter.
It's amazing that Nate's teams NEVER have a pace that indicates that they are a running team... Roy or not, Nate's teams have almost invariably been plodding and slow-paced. He (or anyone else) can say that it was Roy's fault that he wasn't able to change a decade of Nate's coaching and culture within the span of six playoff games, but I don't think I buy it for a second, personally. Ed O.
Inexperience also contributed to losing games 3&4. Those were winnable games....but the Rockets simply executed better with the game on the line.
As noted, Nate was taking some opportunity to run when we could as Houston's defense would not be set and it did create good scoring opportunities. It was well spoken of during the series. That said, I agree that Nate is not a "run first" coach. Nonetheless, Rebecca reported it from the time out huddles and Wheels & Rice during the games. Again, I know stating anything negative about Roy is like shooting the Pope dead due to the amount of hero worship around here, but these are objective facts. Just how much it contributed to us losing is open for debate. But in two of the losses, Roy committed at least two turnovers in the final two minutes of the game, leaving wide open shooters. Very poor decision making on his part.
Roy's a half-court player. Blake is a half-court player. As long as those two get 69 of the 96 available guard minutes, the Blazers will be a half-court team.
Yep. With Bayless for example the Blazers become the perfect pushing team. He, Batum and Aldridge can run the break with Roy and Oden trailing. If it's not there then go into an instant pick and roll with Roy and Oden.
It will certainly be interesting to see if it happens. From the very little we have seen of Bayless this past year - he seemed just fine in fast-pace. Hope it comes to that in the future when he gets more minutes.
