I repped King Sped as well. That was a solid post. My thoughts on King Speed is that he is a very passionate fan. In the moment he can say some pretty crazy things because of his passion. But after digesting a game without expressing his stream of consciousness minute to minute he is able to reflect on the game and post a pretty reasoned analysis. My thoughts on this game is that it is a blip on an 82 game season. Every team has a forgettable game here and there. Hopefully the team learns how to play with Oden and Miller. I think this was a rare egg for Joel and Steve. If not, I kind of agree with Nik who says trade them while they still have value.
Good analysis of the game KS. I bolded your post to reflect my exact thoughts during the game. I do think that this game was needed however. Last year the team would often not play with urgency until they were behind and it may have been why they were as good as they were at ending close games. Some of the starters just seem to start games without any urgency. Is it complacency or is it over confidence? I remember reading a comment from NM that "some of these guys just think they can turn it on when they want" or some such. I thin they will win in Utah because of this and because Utah just doesn't look very good this year with some if they same problems as the Blazers.
Sadly I think Utah will beat us, but I think we will beat Miami at home (I think that is the game after Utah, right?). Throw away the first half game tape of this game. Never speak of it again. Move on. Almost every top team has lost a game or two this year that they had no business losing. We will be fine. But this was just extremely disappointing.
Good post KingSpeed. I admire your optimism about what last night's game means for tonight. I don't agree however. Brandon played 42 minutes and LA played 45, and both expended a lot of energy in the 2nd half comeback attempt. Probably dead leg city in Utah tonight. And I can't imagine last night's game has inspired the team with much confidence.
It's been a long time since I had seen the Blazers put out as bad of effort as they did last night. The thing that jumps out at me is how many players played minutes but basically had little or no stats to show that they had even played. Steve Blake 0 points 2 assist, 2 turnovers. 23 minutes. Pryz 0 points, 4 rebounds in 17 minutes. That is like one rebound every 4 minutes of play.... Rudy 1 of 6 in 18 minutes. 1 rebound. 1 assist. Dante and Bayless with a scant amount of minutes, basically doughnuts from them.
God that was horrible. I couldn't even bring myself to post (or read the game thread) after I got back from the game last night. I honestly think that first half was the worst half of basketball I've ever seen the Blazers play in the Rose Garden - and that includes the 21-win team. I've been pushing for Miller to start, but until now I didn't consider myself a Blake "basher" or "hater", but after last night, I'm reconsidering. Blake was flat out horrible last night. It wasn't just that he didn't score, but he was just awful at everything. Early in the game there was a sequence where Blake had the ball in the corner and Oden was WIDE open under the basket - not a Grizzly defender in site. Blake waited a good five seconds until a defender finally picked up Oden and THEN passed him the ball. It was painful to watch. And then, a few plays later, Blake tries to run a pick and roll with Aldridge and tries to throw the weakest pass I've ever seen to a triple teamed Aldridge - resulting in a Memphis steal and a fast break lay-up by Conley going the other way when Blake fails to get back on defense. This series of plays made it painfully obvious why Steve Blake should not be starting. He simply cannot feed the ball into our bigs in the paint. He fails to get it to them when they a WIDE open and then tries to force it when they aren't. Between Steve Blake and Nate McMillan, it isn't any wonder Greg Oden's development as a basketball player is retarded. Blake can't get him the ball and Nate pulls him out at 6 minutes NO MATTER WHAT. Nate made that stupid rule that Oden gets one foul per quarter - more than that, he gets pulled. Fine, it should work both ways. Unless Oden has 2 fouls at the 6 minute mark, he should get to stay in the game until he picks up his second foul. Greg didn't play great in the first quarter, but he was getting some rebounds, altering shots and had a couple nice assists. When Nate pulled him in the first quarter, the Blazers were up 15-11. By the time Greg came back in the score was 31-15. Memphis out scored the Blazers 20-0 while Greg was out and the game was pretty much lost by that point. But there's Nate on the side line, with his stop watch, making sure his substitutions happen on schedule - regardless of the situation. BNM
Yeah, that's pretty indefensible for a coach, IMO--having set decisions that can't be altered by game dynamics. A coach I respect hugely, Bill Walsh, used to script the first 20 offensive plays for the San Francisco 49ers, because he felt that he could make better decisions given lots of time prior to the game rather than in the heat of the game. The thing is, if a play had a result well outside expectations (a run off-tackle gaining 50 yards for example), he'd go off-script. The script only mattered as long as things were going as he expected. And that's football, anyway...a much more planned-out game. But even there, Walsh was prepared to react to game dynamics. McMillan having inflexible decisions made before the game even starts I just can't see a good rationale for. Like with Walsh, I can understand the idea of having a general game plan that you draw up with time and cool-headedness "before the battle." But I can't understand not having the ability to adjust as the game unfolds.
Losing to Memphis is pretty inexcusable at this point with our team. I didn't watch the game because of work, but was getting the texts from the Blazers after every quarter and thought the scores had to be some sort of misprint. Steve Blake just seemed like he was awful. I have yet to see the lineup of Miller/Roy/Webster/LA/Oden this season for ONE minute.. and considering how many combinations Nate has used, it's surprising. And it seems to be a lineup that would make sense to use at least for a period of time in a game. Has anyone else seen that lineup used and what's the hesitation? Ugh..
It's certainly not in the top 10 (by minutes) 5-man units at 82games.com. Seems inexcusable if you ask me. Blake-Roy-Webster-Aldridge-Oden is the second most used 5-man unit (trailing only the idiotic 3-guard line-up failed experiment), but Miller-Roy-Webster-Aldridge-Oden is nowhere to be seen. So, not only are we not starting our best five players, we aren't playing them together during crunch time (or any time) either. BNM
WOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWW ... I thought maybe you were exagerating or joking. I went and looked and ... you were not .... and that is just sad. I dont know if that is that is the answer or not but why not at least give it a try? I almost get a vibe that they are scared at what happens if it doesnt work.
I thought some pretty wacky things have been coming out of Nate's mouth ever since training camp started. (Greg just needs to rebound and block shots and not worry about offense, Blake is our starting point guard; we won 54 games with him in there, etc.) and he's backing up those wacky statements with truly mind boggling in game decisions. I think I've been pretty slowly converted from a mild Nate apologist in previous years to a pretty staunch Nate defeatist. I'm seeing so little growth in this team, and now with a true veteran point guard and a true low post center (who can dominate at both ends) we're still mired in the mostly slow, perimeter oriented game we've been seeing ever since he got here. I used to think he was just putting the team on training wheels because they were so young, and because they didn't have the full compliment of personnel to run a true NBA quality offense (inside-out, motion, actual pick and rolls, where the rolling big gets the ball, etc.) now I realize he didn't put the team on a bike with training wheels, he put them on a tricycle -- sadly I don't see a lot of evidence that much will be changing from this point forward.
The "good" decisions Nate makes (giving the ball to Oden, going away from the "foul a quarter" rule, going away from the three guard lineup) are all correcting his own mistakes. Mistakes that were pretty obvious to most of us here. Blake might be a better fit in the starting five than Miller, but it's OBVIOUS that not at least trying Miller as the starter with Roy/Webster/Aldridge/Oden is a huge mistake. Nate should have gone with it by now. When he does, even if it flops, he will be making a good decision... that overrides a previous bad one. Ed O.
Well, if it's true that you learn from your mistakes, Nate should be a fucking genius by now. Sadly, he's not. BNM
Not fucking true. He's passing to Oden when Oden gets position. This is more of a myth now than anything. Do I think it's uncomfortable for Roy to look at Oden as a scoring option? Yes. Does he completely ignore him? No. He needs time to adjust.
Yeah, it's amazing to me how that group has not played at all with one another, but it seems like it would make sense to use at least at some point. I don't know if Nate and the coaching staff even know they haven't used it or are avoiding it for a reason. Mind boggling. I still like Nate and all, but to not see that group together isn't too far-fetched.
Yeah, Roy has been getting better about passing the ball into Greg. He's still missing some passes to a wide open Greg at times, but he's gotten much better at it.
It is kind of getting ridiculous now. I was, and still am, fine with Blake starting, but Andre playing less minutes than Blake is just...stupid.
