Wow! What a bizarre coincidence that it finally came in the exact same game when after 3 years Sergio finally got to play 34 minutes? Believe it or not!
What's your point? I watched the game and it had nothing to do with Sergio. Nothing at all. In fact, Sergio played OK, but I felt he plays like it's a scrimmage. He really doesn't seem to understand the offense.
Well once we shifted LMA to point guard and Sergio to power forward it looked like a combo that worked. Seriously.
Thank god Greg was there to clean up all those missed shots Sergio took! You know I like you Maris, but you're grassping at straws on this one. Sergios ball movement was not good last night, which usually ended in him having to lob a desperate shot at the rim. I may be wrong, but it seemed to me that most of the passes that led to direct baskets from Greg came from Brandon and Lamarcus. I really don't dislike Sergio, I just think he's looked lost on the court more often than not this season. I think he'll turn that around, I just don't think it will be as a Blazer.
I'm unconvinced on both your points. One, he was the PG for 34 minutes. To say the offense had "nothing to do...nothing at all" with him kind of reeks of spouting nonsense without any type of justification or observation. For instance, at 10:15 of the first quarter he got the offensive rebound and put in a quick-jump layup. Having the wherewithal to understand that if Greg's boxing out a guy or two there's ability for a guard to swoop in a get a board is something that most of our guards don't do a whole lot. That's one thing that had to do with him. The second was drawing defenders off of LMA for the pick-and-pop. Yes, it was heavily dependent upon LMA to actually make the shots, but he was getting some really open looks. Third was his actually looking for Oden as a trailer on the penetration, rather than as an afterthought when he's stuck on the block with his back to the basket. As far as not understanding the offense, I would submit he knows it the best out of anyone not named Roy. And that includes Blake. For all Blake's greatness, he doesn't seem to have that sense of where the other players on the court are or should be for the plays. Liken it to an NFL quarterback...every starting one (and decent backup) can make the initial read, and maybe go to the first progression. The studs are the ones that make it to the 3rd and 4th progression until they get the open man. Sergio's much farther advanced in this than Blake, and you can see that from how Sergio runs the sets. Blake'll bring it up and go into either an Iso with Roy or the P&R or P&P with one of the bigs. Barring that, he dumps it off and stands outside the 3pt line to space the offense. I'm not saying he's not effective, but he hasn't shown me the capability to make the reads and to act upon them without turning the ball over if he does attempt to exploit something he sees (especially on the break). Is Sergio perfect? Nope. I, for one, would rather him not take so long into the shot clock to get the "perfect" read. Is he a better fit for this team than Blake? Maybe not. But to say he had "nothing to do at all" while being the starting, 34-minute-taking PG (who, for the single-game +/- gurus was +18) who compiled 7 reb, 7 ast and 2 TO's while the center he was in the game with a large portion of the time had a career game...yeah, I'll give him a little credit.
I am not all that happy with Sergio overall, but he is one of the only guys on the team that actually looks to pass to Oden in the post. He has even passed to Oden when he rolls to the hoop after setting a pick. You can critize a great deal of Sergio's game, but I think Oden's break out game was facilitated by Sergio being on the floor with him so much.
I agree with that. Sergio is always driving, trying to find open teammates, when we all know the offense is iso Roy so he can drive, shoot or flip it to LA for a long jumper.
