Bright spot: Batum's offensive game picking up

So I was looking at Batum's last 10 games. It appears his offensive game is picking up. During the last 10 he has had the following:

4 games over 20 points.
4 games in the teens
2 games below ten points. 1 real stinker in there where he went 1 for 11.

There is one good thing that sometimes happens with injuries. It forces other players to take up more responibility on the team. It looks to me like Batum's offensive game is picking up, which is a bright spot in a dark season.

 

Yep. It is nice to see him doing things other than standing in the corner waiting for Brandon to kick him the ball after the ISO collapses

 

This is huge. Now we need to get Wes back on track.

 

So, you're not a fan of the isolation offensive scheme then? Who'd a thunk it?

 

Ya, my therapist said to start verbalizing my complaints instead of holding it in as I have done

 

Yes but you are supposed to verbalize them to somebody that matters. So what I want you to do, is go down and find Nate McMillan and verbalize them. But before you do, make sure and call me so I am there to film it on a video camera and put it on "U-Tube".

 

finally playing "somewhat consistent"

 

Sure, nice to see for his progress, but unfortunately, it is pretty clear that the attention Roy got really helped Nic with his efficiency. If you look at his numbers across the board - TS%, eFG%, TRB%, BLK%, PER, WS/48 - all these have taken a nose-dive compared to previous year, some of them even compared to his rookie campaign...

That ugly ISO offense was very, very efficient - and it seems that the only one that really benefited from more responsibility - from previous year's roster is LMA.

 

That's the whole thing. Consistent players are what is important to a good team. We need more consistent, and less streakyness. Unfortunately the bench, is almost the definition of streakyness.

 

I did that at the last game at Houston.

 

If you are going to talk about how great the ISO is, talk to me about how many playoff series we have won with it. Talk to me about why Phil jackson chastized K*be when he tried to go ISO. it can work in the regular season with elite rebounders and a player that can make uncanny shots. That's it

 

I have nothing to talk about. We had 1 series with the ISO - where the entire team was green - and the problem was not the ISO - it was the people opened by the ISO shrinking from responsibility. Travis, Rudy, JB all were crap in this series, LMA appeared to 3 games of this series, Oden was totally confused by Yao, the most efficient scorer we had in this series other than Roy was Steve Blake - who only appeared from the 3rd game or so...

We had another series without a healthy Roy - so I am not sure why it matters. Even in that 1st series - we still managed to take the Rockets to 6 games - and that same Rockets team without Yao took the Champs to 7 games. I do not feel like there is real data to make an assessment of how good a Roy lead ISO team is in the playoffs based on that one series and the fact that most of that team was too young and felt like they did what they needed to do by just making the playoffs.

Allow me to remind you that Michael Jordan's team never made it out of the 1st round until his 4th appearance... Playoff success does not just happen automatically to young teams, they need time to learn the ropes...

The ISO does not work in the playoffs crap is the king of the small sample crap, honestly, and it completely falls on it's face when you realize that a team like the Cavs that played just as much ISO if not more - made it all the way to finals with a much worse supporting roster around LeBron (but they were much more of a veteran team around him so did not shrink like violets).

 

Batum is a hell of a player. Now he's getting his shot. Just imagine how good we'd be if he were our fourth best player, as this team designed him to be (Oden, Roy, Aldridge, Batum) rather than our second best.

 

I think in the end, the players getting hurt will make him a better player faster. But it still doesn't make me feel any better about them getting hurt. By the time any of them come back, if they ever do, he will be a much better player than before, but the team will have changed a lot as well. Once players have taken responsibility and got used to shouldering part of the load, it is hard to go back.

 

The dreaded mind games have stopped!!!!!

 

I've noticed them running a lot more plays for him. Last night I saw at least 10 times them run him off LA or Joel to get him the open J. I liked seeing him get used that way.

 

The beauty of Batum is you don't have to run plays for him to be effective. It's nice to see him involved in the offense, but he was making a terrific contribution when he was the team's fourth option.

 

I am going to disagree with you on that one. I felt he was the weak link offensively. When teams are guarding you with Steve Nash and you get nothing out of it, you are the weak link. That was a pretty common pattern during the last few years.

 

Nice post. Spot on, IMO.

 

I think it's mostly about adapting to life without Roy -- which gave Nic a lot of wide open threes in the corner -- and about getting some confidence. Hopefully he can keep it up and continue to make strides in his consistency.