Sorry to start another thread but as an outside fan

My dad and I were watching the game tonight and saw a lineup of Aldridge-Roy-Miller-Bayless-Blake


What the fuck? Is it just me or is this stupid?

 

It's not just you ... this team is soooo depleted in the front court right now, the coaches are really throwing mud at the wall hoping something will stick.

 

They all played together for 2:16 in the late 3rd and the last 5:10 of the game, total 7:26, which is 15% of the whole game. The +/- held steady in the 3rd, but they gave up a few points in the late 4th. (Judging by Popcorn Machine.)

http://popcornmachine.net/cgi-bin/gameflow.cgi?date=20091219&game=PORORL

 

I applaud Nate for going beyond his comfort zone and trying to find something that works. Most of the risks will likely fail, but he might find something that works. We're completely fucked in the frontcourt, so he doesn't have much choice.

 

It was so 'curious', I wondered if maybe he had lost his mind a bit. Maybe Nate should turn the team over to one of his assistants for a while until he can get his head back on.

 

Well let's give him some credit here (sort of), Martell was a hot plate of garbage out there tonight (couldn't throw a rock off of a boat and hit water, and his defense was "meh") without an outside threat in this offense and the Magic double and triple teaming LaMarcus anytime he even thought about touching the ball, he needed somebody out there who could space the floor and in this case Blake was it.

I guess you could say he could have thrown Tolliver out there, but c'mon that's a true desperation move.

 

OK, you're right. But, I've always had issues with Nate's rotations and now to play 4 guards when it wasn't necessary... I just don't get it. Maybe he was trying to really throw Orlando off, I don't know. Oh well, he gets paid to coach and I don't, so maybe I should be more generous to the man.

 

Well, you can't really blame Nate with what he's given. Unless you want to see Juwan Howard, who can't guard a tree.

 

I see what you're saying, but what can he do? He's got no Rudy, no Travis, no Nic, and frankly no Martell about 70% of the time. Jerryd, Blake and Miller are all taking turns playing backup shooting guard and even occasionally pushing Brandon to small forward when they go small, and with Joel not much of an offensive threat and Martell giving Nate nothing consistent to work with he's got LMA, Bayless, Blake, Miller and Brandon tonight as the only viable offensive threats at times.

It's a shit situation but what else is there?

 

Yeah, I agree with most that Nate doesn't have much choice. We needed offense, and unfortunately our best offensive players are four guards and LA.

 

Thanks to injuries, this is essentially a team with Aldridge, Przybilla and a bunch of guards. At this point, it seems like guard-heavy lineups are in the cards no matter how you slice it.

 

Mmm let's see, how about Nate trying something really out there that would be common sense/conventional wisdom for just about any other head coach in the league.
Start your best five from day one!

McMillan = Fail as a head coach.

 

Nate has options.

Howard has shown he is at least fairly steady

Cunningham has shown he can hang in the league for a few minutes here and there

Pendergraph was active for the game, and he was 1 pick away from being a 1st rounder

Tolliver can probably give you a couple of minutes of hustle.


Nate did not leave his comfort zone, he played players he was comfortable with.....like always

 

At least we would have had some rebounding. Martell shot like shit but he did hustle.

 

Maybe his half-time pain pill was starting to kick in?

 

I can see where he would use this lineup, in light of all the injuries. But it didn't seem like they tried to push the pace with that lineup, to me at least. It doesn't seem likely that a small lineup can do well in a slow paced game. If they are going to roll with four guards, I'd like to see they run.

Go Blazers

 

Steadily bad.

These are all players expected to be marginal at best at the NBA level. If they're not killing it in practice, I'm certainly willing to give McMillan the benefit of the doubt on them.

 

So, your anger stems from the fact he waited to start Miller and you just used my post regarding experimenting with lineups to address your frustration?

WillG = Fail as a poster.

 

Why?

Is it because of all of the other great personel decisions he has made?