Tomorrow night against the Hawks, I would like to see Steve Blake implement a new strategy. Every time his man, or Miller's man, gets past them and starts heading for Oden, I want Blake to tackle him. Literally. I want the guy on the ground. I would rather Blakey take the foul. Check the guy into the stands. Whatever needs to be done. Any guard who gets into the paint should be laid out. If Blake can't shoot or defend, he could at least protect the big guy.
I like it. Pretty innovative strategy actually. As Steve Young says in that hilarious ESPN Snoop Dogg/Ditka commercial: "Let me make some calls!"
Not a bad idea, but ultimately if Oden can continue to evolve to where he interupts or blocks the shot of that player, thus starting breaks, and also changing momentum in our favor, while avoiding picking up the "silly" foul, then this strategy will not be needed.
On a side note to this, I would like to see Oden's teammates all raise their hands when there is a foul called near him. Andre Miller and Martell Webster are the only players that seem to understand it would be better to have the foul on them, than Oden. Both of them immediately raise their hands when they and Oden are in the same area of a foul.
Other than Houston, Blake has been playing pretty good defense. The opposing guards are not scoring that many points. Both Miller and Blake are getting steals and working hard. That being said, it is a two-way system: Yes; Blake & Miller can still do a better job, but Oden has to be smart in defending the paint and not bring his arms down for silly fouls.
Really? I'm seeing the same old stuff. One crew calls every flop, another refuses to let the players play, another won't call a critical foul to save their life... Same old garbage.
It amazes me that the NBA wold allow so many foul calls on supposedly the next generation center. I wonder if he would be getting that many calls if he was a Laker, Knick or Celtic?
Nope last 5 games, Oden has been keeping his hands up. The new calls are now because his hips touch the offensive player. It's a joke and shouldn't be called.
Well if he'd stop moving his feet when he bumps hips with other players and learn to flop like Joel does he'd pick up a boatload of fouls on other players. The other teams love to run at him.
Oden doesn't flop. Not his game. Do you want a passive center, or the one that will be a "Game Changer"? It's in Oden's nature to always protect the paint, no matter what. Problem is the refs won't give him some leeway like they do with other centers. As much as they are "Truly fouls", they aren't the fouls the refs give to centers. This is why Oden is really frustrated. In the Charlotte game, Oden was called for a foul, then on the other end Mohamad made the same exact foul and it wasn't called. I mean Mohamad really?!?!?!
I'm not sure I would call Bayless a good defender, but of all our guards he seems to be the only one capable of staying in front of his man. Sure he fouls a lot, but I'd rather he picked up 5 or 6 if it meant Greg finished with 1 or 2 fewer fouls in a game. Something's gotta change out on the perimeter or this is going to be a problem for all of our bigs all season long FYI: Greg, Joel and LMA rank numbers 1, 8 and 16 respectively in the league in number of fouls. It could just be a fluke, but that's a helluva lot of foul trouble for our three bigs, and LMA has never been a big foul guy.
