Jazz @ Blazers Pre-Season game 10/11/2010

Since he doesn't agree with what they say, they will discredit him quickly

 

Were you at the Game? His game is one of smarts not speed, and he can trick you. In fact, I saw him juke DeRon more than once, not to mention guard him just as well as anyone could. Speaking of Smarts, anyone see DeRon try to take a technical foul for us?

 

I was at the game. Apparently he's tricked some fans into thinking he's a starter. He had one nice move the entire evening and got pulled early and replaced with Matthews in the 2nd half because the Jazz were doing whatever they wanted with him checking Deron.

 

Golliver sort of laid it at the feet of the players at the end, but the entire article read like a stinging criticism of Coach Nate. If I were the Blazers owner, I'd be very close to turning up the heat on Nate's seat.

 

?????? Say it ain't so? Not the ISO offense....But Nate wants to run, and the new assistants will have input, and Roy is playing off the ball, and.....and

 

Millers a guy who is the definition of a veteran. He picks his spots, especially in the preseason. I think he'll be fine. He's 34 and doesn't have any injury history. I'm not too worried. Kidd and Nash are both over 36 and don't seem to have slowed down.

 

Andre might have been our 2nd most valuable player last year, and i have no prob with him running the point.

 

My point is that he was rendered completely ineffective against the Suns in the playoffs and hasn't shown any signs of life so far in the preseason. Nate looked like he lost faith in him last night when he gave him the hook early. I know it's early, but I can't see him on this squad past the trade deadline.

 

Now if we could get Brandon Roy to think that way too.........

 

He destroyed them in game 1 and then they focused their defense on him every game after that. Unless you were under the impression that he was Michael Jordan (or, even crazier, Kevin Durant) of course he was rendered ineffective. He's never been the kind of amazing scorer that can score effectively against a defense focused entirely on stopping him.

Yes, pre-season is very telling. Roy also hasn't shown much sign of life (Shooter made me aware of this) and his limited minutes show me Nate has lost faith in him. I think Roy's career is probably done. At least, he's done as a starter.

This is becoming really strange...people are posting like this is the first pre-season they've witnessed. Veterans taking it easy and not doing much? omg.

 

The Suns completely focused on Andre in the playoffs? That's revisionist history. They just put an aging Grant Hill on him and the job was done. They weren't throwing double teams at him. LaMarcus was the guy they were keying double teams on.

He looked old and slow in the playoff and looks exactly the same now. Nate ripping him from the lineup early in the 2nd half was no mistake. He was just a step slow at both ends of the court.

I'd like to believe he can magically flip the switch in the regular season, but I think we are witnessing a player at the end of his usefulness as a starter.

 

You need to go back and re-watch that series. They put their best defender on him, AND changed their defensive scheme to slow him down.

 

They put their best perimeter defender on him, whether Hill was aging or not, and they consistently rolled the defense in his direction to make driving on the strong side difficult when he had the ball. You almost never double team the ball out on the perimeter, so that's not a useful standard to use unless you're claiming no perimeter player has ever been the focus of a defense. Even Jordan never commanded a literal double team out on the perimeter; only in the post, where you can plausibly double-team and still not destroy the integrity of your defense.

Not that Miller got the "Jordan treatment" (as Jordan routinely had two help defenders coming at him as he drove into the paint) but the defense definitely rolled in his direction when he had the ball, in my opinion.

Like he is famous for doing every single year? I'd like to believe that, too.

 

Exactly.

The way I remember it, Nash couldn't stop Miller, so they put Hill on him. They could do that, because Roy was out and pretty ineffective when he played. A healthy Roy and they wouldn't have had the option of putting Hill on Miller.

Then again, I was in the hospital going in and out of consciousness for the 2nd half of that series, so my memory might be a little foggy.

 

Nate McMillan doesn't know how to utilize talent. He rides one or two guys and that's it. They should cut him loose so they can get on with the coaching search.

 

Can a coaching search not take place before Nate is fired?

 

I'd hope so, but it's Cho we're talking about. The problem is, if we fire Nate mid-season, who can we get that we don't already have to come in and take the reigns? The off-season was when to do it, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

 

I know. Cho has proven over many, MANY days to be a do-nothing failure. How many more days must we waste until this bum is fired for doing nothing? You have to go all the way back to Wesley Matthews' first summer as a Blazer to find the last time Cho did something.