My issue with Miller is his D. He's so slow and gambles a lot on D and there is a new generation of quick PG's playing today that I just don't see him doing well against. Should be interesting to see if he can somewhat contain Rose tomorrow night.
43 games: 31 - 12 0.720 Games with Oden = 0 Games with Przybilla = 5 Games with Camby = 20 In spite of all the misdirected Miller hate and "they can't co-exist" bullshit, the Blazers had great success last season when Miller and Roy started together in the backcourt at their natural positions - and that was with an injury depleted roster. Yes, it's only 3 games this season, but the trend that started last season appears to be continuing. Thanks for pointing that out. BNM
or Williams, Paul, Rondo, Wall, Westbrook, Evans...Its a new breed of PG these days. Miller is a solid PG, I like him. But, defensively he scares me against guys like that.
Him guarding them in spurts works, but not the entire game. Against teams like the Thunder he's going to be busy with Durant, or whatever talented wing another team has. Batum is only logging like 28 minutes a game?
The current rules have pretty much made it impossible for point guards to play aggressive perimeter defense. Nowadays with the hand check rules what they are, you're considered a good point guard defender, if you can fight over a screen, if you can funnel a 1 to his weak hand or into your help defense and if you can force your counterpart to take a jump shot, or limit his passing lanes. Andre has definitely lost a step or two on D, but he's still really strong which allows him to cover some 2s as well as 1s and he's got a great feel for generating steals (2 in the 4th quarter against New York stood out) so he's still got some tricks up his sleeve.
Well, I advocated trading Miller, but only in a deal with Przy to get a younger PG who can play for years to come (Chris Paul, for example, even if it meant moving Batum and/or Oden as well). If there were posters who wanted to get rid of Miller and have Roy or Matthews start at the point, I disagree with them.
The way the Blazers contained Rose in recent years was to have Aldridge trail him behind whoever was guarding him at the time making it practically two people guarding Rost at all time. I suspect that we will continue to see this - as the Bulls do not have Boozer to keep Aldridge occupied. FWIW - the Blazers had pretty good success with this strategy...
I am not a fan of Miller as a great fit on this team - but until a younger, better 3 pt. shooting PG can be brought in, or at least, a younger, better defending PG can be brought in, Miller means a lot to this team, especially this year when the spacing seems to be better thanks to more cuts that make it harder for the opposing team to pack the middle and Brandon's improved catch and shoot touch.
