Does anyone else notice that Oden tends to play really well late in games? Especially his first few games after the injury earlier in the season when he was arguably playing his best ball. He tends to be slow out of the gate, but later in the game, if he's in there and if the game is tight, he tends to play big. Big rebounds. Big blocks. Big dunks. This is good news.
yes he also is clutch when he has five fouls. He plays so much smarter in in the 4th and when he has 5 fouls. He will be more consistent as he gets older.
I think early on, he has some concern about fouls. Early fouls = lots of bench time. Late in games, there's not a lot to save fouls for and the game is called a little looser, so Oden plays more aggressively and confidently. It's a theory, anyway.
I didn't think Oden had the dumb fouls tonight, that have hurt him all season. He had two moving screens, one if which he was already rolling (which is typically allowed) and two where Jaric ran straight into him. The Jaric plays, I believe he got reputation fouls. There was a play in the 2nd where Roy ran up to Marc Gasol, bumped into him, and ripped the ball out of his hands. I said to my friend, "If Greg would have done that exact same thing, he would have got called for a foul." He needs to continue improving the situations he's in, and like tonight, avoid ticky-tack fouls, the fouls hedging screens, and fouls trying to get offensive rebounds. That should leave him around 3-4 fouls a night, once he's able to change his reputation.
Clutch implies big play ability in close games or the ability to hit a big shot at the end of games ... I don't think there's a large enough sample size to say he 'clutch', but his end of game defense does seem to be pretty good Tell you what, if he ices a game with his free throws or somehow blocks a game winning dunk (without fouling!) before the end of the playoffs I guess we can start having the conversation about his 'clutchness'
I feel as if the refs are in a better position to allow aggressive moves later in games, particularly the tight ones, than they are earlier in the game. Gasol and Oden were battling down low at the end of tonight's game and the refs let it go, giving Oden a freer hand to deal out the damage that he normally gets called for.
Whatever he is, that block on a dunk attempt by Warrick (I think) was phenomenal. Couple that with the dunk and the nice D on Conley and he had a very nice 4th quarter.
'Serious project'. Just write 500 times 'I will not bash Oden when he has a off game.' and get it over with.
In the last 16 games, Oden has finished the game without foul trouble (under 4 fouls) exactly twice, or 87% of the time: http://www.nba.com/playerfile/greg_oden/game_by_game_stats.html Counting pre-season, he's played in 62 games this year. He's been in foul trouble 43 of them, or 69%. So he's actually getting worse at staying out of foul trouble the longer the season goes. You hope that reputation and experience will allow him to get better at this as he goes forward, but the opposite seems true right now. Honestly, I don't really think he's playing more recklessly lately. I think he's just got a reputation among refs for fouling a lot, so they call him for fouls more. I remember Przybilla being in the same negative feedback loop his first few years with us. I really don't remember how he broke out of it. One day it just seemed like he wasn't Foulzilla anymore.
GO is a fucking stud. We're going to look back at his rookie season and say to ourselves, "So that's what Oden at 30% looks like."
What I liked the most about last nite game where Oden is concern is he played more mins than Joel. I love Joel, but I hope that continues. I hope Oden is able to stay on the floor longer than Joel from here on out. That's progress.
Definitely. At this point Joel is a slightly better defender (mostly because he gives up fewer fouls) but it's not even close on the offensive end. Przybilla dunks when he's open. Oden dunks when he wants to.
I think it's important to bring up his dominant performance in the NCAA Title Game. If his teammates decided to show up at all Ohio State should have won that game. If coming up big in big games doesn't define being clutch, then I don't know what "clutch" is...
