Nate seems to be a good motivator and an excellent disciplinarian as far as the average fan can see. He seems to be a good bloke to boot, but, For the love of god his coaching style is absolutely, hair tuggingly, frustrating. I truly believe this team would perform at a higher level under the reigns of a more suitable coach. I've lurked a long time, and have often thought of starting a thread voicing my frustration with McMillan, and now I see some other posters are feeling the same way that I have for quite some time. Nothing would please me more than to see the front office putting this young squad in the hands of someone who is willing to let them stretch their legs a little and find out who they really are as a team. A few subpar minutes now (experience without being yanked out of the game) could lead to a much more savvy player farther down the road... Just my two cents, . . and now. . Let the lurking recommence. . . . . .
Nate is a really bad X's and O's guy. Either management needs to step in and make him change out some assistants, or get rid of him. This team really needs a defensive concept better than leaving guys wide open for 3's. They could also use someone who can construct a better offense than jacking up 3's hoping they go in, and losing when they don't
I dont understand why Nate takes Batum out so quickly all the time. The kid starts getting in a groove, then boom, here comes Chucker Outlaw.
Orlando is good, but I don't think Nate made a very smart move by leaving Outlaw in the game to play defense when Batum, who is much better, was sitting on the bench. Here is another thing to consider. Outlaw only cares about offense. Outlaw made a bonehead play on the possession right before that. Do you think he was still thinking about that???? I do. Nate should have subbed in Batum.
I sure did disagree with Nate's coaching moves this game. Just like the team, he's still learning to be a great head coach. It's going to take time. More time than some of us thought. It's all good though. Blazers played very well tonight. I can't say I'm sore that we lost, but I'm not disappointed in the team. Having so many good players is making it tough on Nate I think. He's got to do a better job of figuring out when to lean on which players. He will figure it out.
I would have loved to see Batum in for that last possession but Nate would have looked even dumber if Batum came in and ended up fouling Terk on that last play. Fans in here would have ripped him a new one.
Other than one good defensive play - Nic had a pretty bad game. Travis had a pretty good first half and was already in the game when we went on a run that had us up 8 within 2 minutes to the end. Yes, we made some mistakes, the Magic shot the ball like crazy - but the substitution game was just fine. We did make a big run on them right before that end of game. It happens - there is no need to get all upset because the guys that were in there managed to make a big run 5 minutes from the end but had a bad spell in the last two minutes. Basketball is a game os streaks and we had some bad plays. It happens. Nothing to see here.
You guys really need to read post game interviews, not to say that Nate did anything masterful with his subs, but it's pretty clear that Travis didn't react all that well on the last offensive possession, and he completely owned it in his interview with Jason Quick. This was more about failure to execute in the last minute and a half than it is some kind of failure in coaching. Let's give the Magic a little bit of credit, they hit some pretty clutch threes down the stretch, and even Hedo's last shot only went in off a lucky bounce off the glass. It's weird, but I actually feel pretty OK with the loss, because I saw couple of things that really bode well for future success: LaMarcus completely dominant last night, if he brings that kind of fire tomorrow night (and after) this team is going to be in a pretty sweet spot -- he looks like a changed player after the Boston game. Secondly, I saw pretty good ball movement and interior defense, guys had trouble getting out on Orlando's shooters, and they were blisteringly hot. Them's the breaks.
Yah, besides the nice shooting from the Magic -- LMA and BRoy were freaking awesome, and Sergio/Rudy alley-oops baby, damn!
