I'm not someone who is in love with Batum but holy crap, he EATED this ball: http://www.nba.com/video/index.html Click the block video.
Listening to Juwan Howard during the post game is so refreshing. He goes out of his way to praise Greg Oden and it comes across sincere. He made Greg sound like he was the reason we won tonight, and I think he knows GO needs his teammates to believe in him. We are very blessed to have Howard on our roster.
The Great Distributor took 18 shots (6 more than anyone else), made only 5, had only 4 assists in 38 mins.
I am thinking that Howard may turn out to be a much better pick up than any of us could have imagined
And yet he still shot better than Sergio has for this pre-season, had 1 less assist, more points and rebounds than Sergio has had the WHOLE pre-season. And all that in just 1 game.
Miller went 8-9 from the FT line, scored 18 points, grabbed 5 rebounds, and had a steal. He was +/- 0, but Blake (starter) was -7. And the Blazers won. Not sure what the beef is. As an aside, Sergio has played his way to the bench and DNP-CD territory on a shitty team.
Ok so when he was on the floor so that the lineup was: Miller, Blake, Webster, Outlaw and Pryzbilla, exactly who the fuck do you expect to score? Who are the finishers he is distributing to? That was a lineup a huge part of the game. It's a miracle they didn't get their ass totally kicked while that lineup was in.
Maybe it sends a message to Oden that he is the guy the coach wants in at the end of the game, because he is that good!