I think JB's defense alone will make this a good move. Pair him with BRoy or Dre and things should go well.
No I don't see it that way. I see it as probably eating into Rudy's minutes. He might eat into Blakes some. But the last few games Rudy's defense has been atrocious (he was guarding Jamaal Crawford in the last game and it looked like a rookie vs a veteran) and his production has been horrible. All he has been doing is jacking 3's and missing them. No pressure on the paint at all.
I am pretty damn sure Bayless's minutes would come at Miller's expense since Blake is an important piece of Portland's championship puzzle. At least he is if you listen to KP and Nate. If you use your eyes and brain Blake is an obvious albatross around the teams neck.
I'd like to see the Miller/Bayless and Roy/Bayless back courts. The Miller/Bayless pairing is especially intriguing as it gives Miller another Alley Oop target. Speaking of which, why aren't we seeing more plays designed to free Oden/LMA/Outlaw/Roy/Webster/Bayless/Rudy(if he isn't hurt) with a back pick along the baseline for the oop from Dre'? It is among the many things I expected to see with Dre' on the team that hasn't happened. Oh that's right Dre' and Oden are responsible for 100% of the losses (hat tip to Kingspeed).
If anything.. if Nate even has one inkling about putting in a Blake/Andre backcourt, he should instead put Jerryd in there for Blake.
This tells me that Nate looked at game tape from last year and realized Batum was the only one that could contain Parker. Might as well give Bayless a shot and see if he can fill in...
That's my guess too. 4 minutes, a missed shot and a turnover and we don't see Jerryd for 15 more games. And if by some miracle Greg hasn't fouled out in the first 94 seconds (ok, 3 fouls) because he breathed on Duncan, Greg comes out at the 6 minute mark...only to see Joel come in and get 3 fouls in short order. Then it'll get ugly. Man I hope I'm wrong and you guys all point that out over and over and over tonight.
I think maybe Nate has different meanings for phrases or words. Like, maybe contain means "get killed by". Kind of like the time Nate talked about how Blake played great defense on Kobe (who scored like 48), it's obvious that "played great defense" means to Nate, "Blake sucks at defense, but he's better than Sergio is. But so is my dead grandmother". Or when he says the team will "push the ball" (obviously that means something else). I suspect that "play defense!" secretly means "defend your opponents right to score baskets easily".
At least that's 5 minutes that no one else could give us! (Did he really say that after the game? I missed it... And if he did say it, I'm curious about the context. Was he just being humble and gracious toward his countryman and likely idol, being questioned about his ability to "shut down" an elite point guard?)
He said Parker was just too fast for him to be chasing around. It was either a video or it's in one of Batum's french translated interviews, I can't remember. Regardless though, having Batum on a PG means you've got a defensive mismatch somewhere else. Not sure if I like that.
Not if you play another small forward, like Webster. If you play Batum/Roy/Webster/Aldridge/Oden and Batum can actually competently defend point guards, you have no defensive mismatches anywhere. I'm not sure how long Batum can defend a point guard, but I think he could do a decent job for short stretches.
