We made them pay with the starters. They are all with a major + in the game. It's the bench that is playing crap. Roy is not working well with Miller next to him - but Miller is not working at all with the bench.
You're forgetting that Blake is hitting the threes when Roy gets into trouble. Miller wouldn't hit those threes.
Blake was our leading scorer in the first half. He is not the problem. Without him starting, we would've been blown out in the first quarter.
The offense looked crisp before Roy and Miller started playing together. We were up 21-10 when Blake went out with 2:40 left in Q1. Roy played all his minutes with Miller since.
Blake is not the problem. He's been our best player tonight. Oden's been pretty good too, but he doesn't get his looks without Blake.
I'm not forgetting that. I'm pointing out that it hasn't actually led to better team performance. Hitting three-pointers is definitely Blake's strength. If he couldn't do that, he really wouldn't be NBA-caliber. Miller is better overall. The idea was that Blake's shooting was somehow more important to THIS offense than Miller's overall betterness...but it isn't as if the team looks any more efficient or powerful on offense when Blake starts.
A) Blake is the one getting it to Oden B) We got our big lead at the top of the game because of Blake's shooting. So... C) Blake should be starting.
Yes, you do like using small sample sizes to make large points, but that's not very compelling. A lot of things change over the course of the game, the +/- for a player over a selected stretch of game isn't meaningful at all. Over this season, the team hasn't looked any crisper with Blake running the point. I'd say the best the team has looked (in short spurts) has been with Miller. So far, those have been isolated periods of player, but it would be nice to give the team a chance to gel with Miller rather than every other game decide that the "Miller experiment" isn't working and it's time to disrupt it all again.
Do all of the Blazers have worms or something? They don't seem to be very interested in playing basketball. Now Martell is heating up...
