How about instead of complaining about the refs

giving Oden so many fouls, complain that our team is allowing most of these fouls to pile up on him.

Seriously folks, Oden wants to control the paint and his instincts is to always go after anyone trying to score in the paint. The sooner our team learns to control "dribble penetration" the sooner Oden won't be plagued with "foul trouble"

Have you guys seen how Oden gobbles each and every rebound? The dude is a beast and has a natural knack for grabbing boards. Also, I see very little "one on one" post plays that gives Oden fouls. The majority of his fouls are going after players that just beat their man.

Fix that and Oden will and should be on the floor more than 20 minutes a damn game!

 

When you play hard and with agressions the refs calls go with you. When your team plays passive, they do not. It is that simple.

 

You are true with that statement, but it's also true that "If you give the refs opportunity to call fouls, they will call more than none" The more you put Oden in danger of having to cover for our lackluster dribble penetration d, the more you allow the refs to have a clear view of calling a foul on your big men.

Dammit all to hell. Let them kill you from the perimeter. I would much rather have someone score from 20ft+ out, than 5 feet from the rim.

 

I'd rather just read people complaining about Nate, Blake, Roy, and whoever else is the latest scapegoat.

 

Oden is not very good.

Stop blaming our guards for Oden fouling everyone within 10 feet of him.

I sat courtside last week and I'm pretty sure our 300 lb baby deer on rollerskates fouled me a few times.

 

The scapegoat is effort. While I do have problems with certain individual players play, the main problem is effort. Anybody who hasn't figured this out should go watch a Celtics game, watch how they carry themselves on the court, watch the effort they put out, watch the emotion they play with, and then go back and watch one of the last few Blazer games.

 

Scapegoat? Um, just FYI, if you haven't noticed, not only Oden is in foul trouble. It's mainly our bigs.

 

So is Pryzbilla not that good? He's averaging close to 5 fouls a game Hanky Panky.

 

Oden was the only player in foul trouble last night.

 

He's averaging 3.4 foul/game. That's closer to 2 fpg than it is to 5 fpg.

 

Yep he sure was. But we are talking about the entire season. And so far, Pryzbilla and Oden have been statistically plagued with fouls. That says a ton about our perimeter D.

 

Przy is averaging 3.4 fouls per game.

stop making excuses for Oden. He will never live up to the ridiculous expectations Portland had for him.

Start thinking of Oden as a project.. someone that should have been drafted late in the 1st round.. and you'll feel better about his game...

Just don't think about how we could have had Kevin Durant.. or you will go crazy.

 

I offered my solution in another thread. Start playing some zone to protect the Foul Machine. It worked last season at times. I'd like to see it tried again this year considering the team is much better with Oden on the court (when he can stay on the court).

 

Game 1 versus Houston = 6 fouls, Game 2 vs. Denver = 5 fouls, Game 3 vs. Houston = 0 fouls, Game 4 vs. OKL = 4 fouls, and last night = 2. So three games out of 5, he was in foul trouble. I would say he's been in foul trouble moreso than not and as a back up.

 

See my reply below.

Also, I would like to add that he is averaging 3.4 fouls in 17 minutes. LMAO! That's a foul per every 4 minutes. HAHAHAHAHA, yeah I would say that's trouble.

 

Some Zone is fine.. but we look totally confused in our Zone.. which is amazing when you consider Nate is "Team USA's Defensive Coach"...lol

the bottom line is - with the handchecking rules in the NBA - you cannot protect a slow, awkward, overly aggressive big man from fouls.

It's not possible.

 

Zone is much easier to implement than pretty much any other defense IMO. It's better suited for stopping any type of dribble penetration. Also, it's learned in college more than any defense. So most our "Young Players" already know how to play this d.

 

There is a reason nobody runs a standard 2-3 Zone in the NBA, like they do in college and HS.. everyone can shoot in the NBA.

99% of all NBA teams run matchup Zones - which I can assure you, that in order to run them well.. they are not easy to implement.

 

Okay I can agree with that. But still there is a problem with the dribble penetration. So what do you think we need? Cause we ain't getting durant like you want, and we are stuck with Oden.

 

We are who we are.. I would say a new coach is needed.. but the reality is (and I have been saying this for 2 years) that we are not as good as our record had indicated the past 2 seasons.

We seemed to have every ball bounce our way - every thing just seemed to break right for us and I could tell that it was basically luck.

It is going to catch up with us sooner or later and this could be the year.

This team is nowhere near ready to contend in the West. We could not beat the top 6 teams in a 7 game series.. this is the year we come back to earth and Nate gets exposed.

also, KP is terribly overrated as well.. he made some great deals to get Roy and LMA.. but your head would spin on the deals he has passed on to keep players like Sergio, Outlaw and Bayless.