Both teams were playing Curry and Blake on each other on defense. Roy has the body to defend Ellis where Blake was more suited for Curry.
So that means he completely forgets how to defend guards? Besides, small forward is just a label. At no point was he strictly a small forward. It was called a 3 guard lineup, right? Roy got burned. It's OK. It's actually nothing new.
Miller was on Ellis when he was in the game, but as you pointed out he had foul problems. That doesn't mysteriously make Roy incapable of defending Ellis, though, because he was Roy's man. Roy gets burnt a bit on defense unless it's at the end of close games; infact if you watch you'll see Roy turn his head quite a bit and his man cut to the basket for an alley-oop. I've never had a problem with it in the past because he's had to carry so much of our offense, but we're becoming a more balanced team and he needs to be putting some more effort into defense. He's shown he can be a spectacular defender (his defense against Johnson a few years ago was amazing) when he wants to be, and now that our team is progressing he should at least make himself an average defender.
I love Roy being the man. What I hate is when Roy feels he needs to be too much of the man and misses Oden inside.
That's a reasonable point, IMO. That said, Oden was given the ball a lot last night, and Miller was not in the game. Perhaps Roy is adjusting his game, and he's better at adjusting to the strengths of the team than Miller?
Dwight Jaynes is obviously reading this board and writing in kind to get hits on his otherwise pathetic blog. He's sacrifriced much of his solid credibility in doing so, IMO. That said, I don't see where Jaynes is grilling Nate as much as he's offering a counterpoint.
I sort of feel silly for saying I'd keep Roy over Paul 2 years ago. 2 years later and after seeing how the team has progressed, I feel like Paul would be a much better "fit" along side Aldridge and Oden. Chris Paul made Tyson Chandler not look like Tyson Chandler for a year. Imagine him and Oden.
Tyson Chandler's career high in PER is lower than Oden's last year as a foul-plagued rookie. Chandler had a PER of 13.4 with Paul last season until he was traded. What do you fell silly about?
That's because Oden in general is a better player than Chandler. But for a couple years, Paul made Chandler not look like Chandler. Now that he's in Charlotte his PER has been cut in half. I feel silly because Paul is a better player than Roy, and I think he'd fit better with the Blazers.
Paul is playing with a bunch a stiffs minus West. Not a good argument. Paul's playoff PER - 26.4 Roy - 25.9 What stats are you looking at? And as far as Roy's play goes in the playoffs, he had 17 assists in 6 games. So much for getting others involved I guess. I agree. He's a top 5 player.
Pretty extreme opinion. Maybe we should just start by bringing him off the bench and see how he responds?
