That was exactly what I was going to post in this thread. Start Miller and Batum in the backcourt, let Batum guard Kidd (and Barea) and have Miller guard Stevenson. Disrupt a team's point guard, if they rely on him (so this doesn't apply to, say, the Lakers), and you disrupt their entire offense. That's why the Bulls and Blazers got so much mileage out of putting Pippen on top opposing point guards.
The fact that a 38 year old Jason Kidd is destroying us on offense is beyond embarrassing at this point. We shouldn't have to strategize how to guard the guy... He's 38.... and about all he can do at this point is shoot the long ball (I never thought I'd say that about Kidd). Put Batum on Kidd, put LMA on Dirk, and if they run the pick and roll it won't help them.
Batum should not defend Dirk Nowitzki. Dirk's confidence elevates when Batum is assigned to him and he gets his shooting rhythm going. Gerald Wallace should not defend Peja. It takes him away from rebounding and he loves to cheat on defense for weakside help. Peja killed them last night being left open.
It's not that embarrassing. The guy is an inner circle Hall of Famer and his game was never based on athleticism (though it didn't hurt, either). He's extremely skilled and intelligent and by some miracle* learned to become a deadeye shooter. He still retains all that skill and the team runs sets to get him open enough to make his passes and get shots off. Portland's team defense hasn't been all that good, so he's feasting. It's bad, but it's not like letting Fisher go off. *Steroids
Much of his game relied on his speed though. The guy was a bruising point guard with blazing speed. It was a lethal combo when he was younger. He's a shadow of himself, but now he's somehow learned the Nowitzki "V" and he's destroying us from deep. He's not going to blaze by us anymore, so all we have to worry about is his shooting. Doesn't seem that complicated.
His speed was more a tool he used on the break. His half-court play was more methodical. He really wasn't Steve Nash, darting around in the half-court.
Sounds like a good plan. Somebody pointed out to me in another thread the Miller/Batum/Wallace/Aldridge/Camby lineup sucked in game 1, though. *shrug* Maybe it'd work better if we went in with the plan to use it a lot more.
It was me that said it and in game 1 it was the truth. Game 3 we should go too far away from the gameplan, since we have HCA; which usually helps to motivate our bench. If we lose game 3, then do anything.
(From here on out, every time I hear somebody say, "We should start Roy!/Give Roy more minutes!/Let Roy get in a groove!" I shall hear it in Christopher Walken's voice. At least then it'll be funny.)
Sorry, I forgot it was you. It was a pretty prescient observation. A week or so ago I mentioned that this year I find myself asking myself, "Now what the hell is Nate supposed to do?!?!" instead of my old, "What the hell is Nate doing!?!?" I'm yet again asking myself the former and not really coming up with much that I'm confident in.
Yeah, but a one-game sample of a particular five-man unit seems rather small to make any conclusions. Even the best five-man unit could have a bad stretch. It's not like I expect a Miller/Batum/Wallace/Aldridge/Camby group to dominate every minute they play...but I think it would be worth trying to see if it could neutralize Kidd to some extent while really not weakening anything else the team does.
I don't think any other lineup combo would help. A huge problem is letting opposing PG's get into the paint at will. This should be addressed during the off-season.
End the Roy at PG experiment. It's a dumb idea and won't work. Perhaps try playing Dirk 1 on 1 and let him score 40. Don't let Peja/Kidd/Terry/etc beat you. Stop trying so hard to take advantage of their smaller guards. We know we're trying to, they know we're trying to. It leads to bad entry passes/angles.
My idea for game 4: stop posting up Aldridge. I don't think he has been particularly successful at it for one. And they haven't needed to double team him so it hasn't helped the rest of the team much. I think for this series he could go back to the old Aldridge, shooting jump shots; this would pull Chandler/Haywood out and let us attack the middle with guys like Wallace and Matthews. If the defender loses his focus on Aldridge it might set him up for more alley oops, or if the defender slides back to the post to stop drivers, they could dish off to Aldridge. This strategy would also prevent Aldridge from becoming fatigued and maybe he could play better defense. He could still fake posting up some but pass or hand off sooner just so Dallas didn't realize what was happening. And then in the second half surprise them by driving to the basket a couple times.
