The Clips did a really good job of doubling him all night long, and he wasn't getting any calls when he did try to get to the basket (ZERO FT's) His teammates were open and knocking down shots, and he didn't have his A game tonight - he can't bail us out every night. Other guys are going to have to step up and contribute. The team shot over 50% and had 27 assists - the problem wasn't the offense. Give the Clippers credit for working the ball inside out, and breaking it open in the 4th. You know if we had kept it close in the 4th, he would have made his mark down the stretch.
Dunleavy did a great job gaming Brandon. Expect more of the same until he gets some help from returning players. So, what do we call this strategy? Annoy-a-Roy?
That's why need need another legit scorer that can get to the FT line when Roy is shut down. LMA is not that guy.
Miller did that tonight. He was almost literally trying to get Brandon the ball on every position but Roy either couldn't get open or just passed it back to Miller. Freaking Miller was great tonight. For a second there he actually had this team running up and down scoring on the fastbreak.
I've seen teams come out and double Brandon many, many times. It's rare that you see a team execute it for 40 minutes like the Clippers did tonight (did I just say "execute" and "Clippers" in the same sentence?) They stuck with it the whole game, despite the rest of the Blazer team shooting the lights out. They didn't get discouraged or lose focus. Give it up for them - they did a great job. One other smart thing Dunleavy did was mix up who was guarding him. He'd put a longer defender like Butler or Ricky Davis on him - Brandon couldn't shoot that rhythm jumper over the top. He could get around those guys, but they had their bigs come out and meet him before he could get in the lane. Then he would put Baron Davis on him for a while and he did a good job of getting right in his grill. The refs also allowed the Clips to play real physical with B-Roy. Sometimes you just have to tip your cap.
Come on, you're talking about Brandon Roy, B-Roy. Top of the key is position to score. If there's one maxim that appears truer and truer the longer I watch NBA basketball it's this: good bench players turn into mediocre players on the road. Even though the Staples Center for a Clippers' game is far from a hostile environment, it's not the bastion of support that the Rose Garden is. The Blazers desperately need a few guys to come back to help Brandon out, though, on nights like these when the defense is keying on him. On the bright side, Aldridge shouldn't be out long, and neither should Blake. Then it should be just a matter of weeks before Rudy and Batum come back. Just keep it together a little longer, Blazers...
I thought it was as much Roy as what the Clippers did. He looked tired or possibly gimpy and didn't seem to get much lift around the basket, even early in the game. No surprise, with the load he's been carrying lately. Hopefully, he shakes it off tomorrow, whatever it was.
I thought Bayless "could" be that guy but it is painfully obvious that Bayless is regressing right now. Hopefully the coaches can find a way to get Bayless out of his funk he is having right now but since the Suns game he has had only really 1 good game.
I don't know if it's regressing as much as he's just lost his swag a little. He's had about a dozen shots thrown back in his face this week. I've said this a few times now - he's not as good as he was vs Pheonix or SA (at least not yet), but he's not as bad as he's been more recently either. He's going to have ups/downs - these games will prove to be a good experience for him.
We certainly could have used Blake's outside shooting last night to make the Clippers pay for their defensive strategy. Howard and Webster both did a nice job of knocking down their shots, but a second guy to knock down treys would have been very helpful.
I think the right thing for Brandon to do tonight would have been to put forth a better effort on defense. Get out on Eric Gordon so he doesn't keep hitting three pointers. But really I don't know that there's anything Roy could have done to win this game. We got destroyed on the boards. Camby and Kaman were just too much for us.
http://blog.oregonlive.com/behindblazersbeat/2010/01/la_clippers_105_portland_95_a.html This was the first I heard about his hammy. If it's that sore, he shouldn't be playing. If he's favoring that leg, and he ends up blowing out a knee . . . sometimes you have to sacrifice a game or two. If his hammy is tweaked, I'd rather he sit out tonight and against LA & Cleveland. We aren't going to beat those teams anyway if B-Roy is less than 100%. Better to let him rest and come back against Milwaukee next Wednesday.
Maybe I need to re-watch it, but I'm not positive that Brandon did the right thing. The Clips did a great job planning for it, and gave him pretty much the Stephen Curry business from last year where they had one guy face-guarding him keeping him from the ball and another guy lurking right there. Once he did get it, he was frustrated, not getting his normal "hey" calls, and the J wasn't on. It seemed even during the game that the Clips wanted us to beat then 4-on-3.5, and for a long time we were hanging with them. I'm not super-frustrated about tonight--we lost to a decent team who was making a lot of shots. But I don't think that keeping with running the Roy P&R or Miller's pop-a-shot at the top of the key was working, and that Webster (having his best game this year) and Howard (who seemed to be scoring pretty easily and shooting well) didn't get the ball much in the 4th. And the D by Roy and Bayless on Gordon and Roach-man wasn't exactly stellar. He had a poor game, and I'm not going to crucify him for it. But I don't think he did the "right thing tonight" on a couple of levels.
