Oh, really? By the numbers: February 4th thru 17th, 1998 Last time the Blazers had scored 100 points in six consecutive games.......................until now. So there.
I may be wrong here but I was under the impression the problems folks have with Nate's offense is not that it is completely ineffective. They would not have won the number of games they have if the offense was useless. It's more that it is very predictable and somewhat stationary. The same is said of Mike Brown's offense in Cleveland. Portland gets almost no easy buckets (which is way different animal then having a running team). This makes the Blazers easier to defend, especially in the playoffs. I don't think that Portland can win a title with an offense that counts on B-Roy hitting difficult shot after difficult shot in isolation. I would be most happy to be wrong about that.
Sometimes, I think it's a case of Brandon putting too much on his own shoulders.............and Nate idly standing by letting him do so.
The 6 teams the Blazers have played in that time-frame (ppg allowed) Memphis - 103 Minnesota -106 Toronto - 105 Indiana - 104 New Jersey - 101 Chicago (OT Loss) - 98.5 I hope we are at least average
So, in 12 years, the Blazers have never played a collection of bad teams (in succession) such as these?
Or, it's letting your best player have the ball and deciding what to do with it. I guess I don't uinderstand what other options people want to see at the end of games. The three-man weave? The pick and pop? The picket fence? This team needs a viable second option who can create offense at the end of games, and hopefully Miller is that guy. The problem is, Roy has proven to win games at the end with his decisions. I'm not sure if Miller has proven that ability.
Passionate fans of a specific team will quickly begin to realize the predictability of their offense. Offensive predictability in the NBA is very common...
This^ I will add that I mentioned in another thread how amazed I was at the diversity of Nate's offense last night, though.
Funny you mention that, I noticed the same thing. Andre Miller did an excellent job of changing the tempo throughout the game as well.
Let me be clear on my opinion. I believe our half court execution is excellent, and getting better. But, I would like to see the team get more easy buckets. I absolutely do not want them to be turned into a running team, as running teams cannot win in the playoffs because good teams will just slow down the pace if they can't run with them. Between controlling the pace, fouls, and TV timeouts it is much to easy to take a running team out of their game, and out of their comfort zone.
It has been said before, and it bears repeating: you don't have to be a "running team" to get easy baskets. Take the recent Spurs teams. They didn't run-and-gun as an offensive strategy, but they got easy buckets in transition from their defense.
If anybody really thinks this team is poised for big time post season success with just a grinding half-court oriented offense that specifically works to open up long 2s and 3s with little real inside-out attack, with only a middling' team field goal percentage' (and even a middling effective team field goal percentage), I believe they are in for a rude awakening ... part of this is a function of the defense that gets few stops and few transition buckets off of those stops (like oldmangrouch mentioned above). The half-court execution isn't bad for the most part, but either they need more active stops (steals and blocks, not dead 'dead ball' turnovers), or they need to figure out ways to generate higher percentage inside looks with their bigs.
That stat doesn't mean our offense is bad. We just play at a different pace. What is our shooting percentage? Free throw shooting percentage? Turnovers percentage? That, to me, as how to judge our offense which I think is one of the most efficient in the league.
has anyone predicted big time post season success? As configured/built, their inside force guy is Greg... STOMP
I've yet to read that post. I do see posters hoping to still make the playoffs and winning in the postseason with no offensive threats down low, and the fact that the team is actually pushing some pace right now gives me some hope that they are adjusting.
Fair nuff. Nobody said it here, but there has been a semi-long running debate over this team's supposedly superior offense based on their efficiency on a per possession basis, I guess I was 'heading 'em off at the pass' and it wasn't really going that way -- my bad.
