Batum's opportunity this road trip

Batum's my favorite Blazer. I've seen glimpses of it all year, finally put all together in the Houston game. Its too bad he was frozen out of the game by teammates when it mattered most.

 

According the today's Oregonian, Nate ran a play in OT for Nic off of a screen. Nic didn't shoot, though, and LMA had to take the shot.

If you're not going to shoot when a play is called for you, you're not going to get plays called for you.

http://www.oregonlive.com/blazers/i...sider_nicolas_batum_demonstrates_why_con.html

 

theres a difference from not shooting when your open when you have your number called and not having a good shot open for you....

 

1 failed play in 11 minutes for a guy who was smoking hot.

Just a failure. Nic is doing his best to defer blame away from his teammates and coach there. It's a shame that Nate never ever seems to realize his mistakes.

 

Lol. Sometimes just because you get a play called for you doesn't mean you need to shoot. Take a bad shot, just because the play was called for you?

 

http://www.oregonlive.com/blazers/index.ssf/2012/01/houston_107_portland_105_blazers_endure_painful_ov.html

 

Hey, I'm not defending Nate here, but Batum got the majority of his points without plays being called for him last night. Blame Crawford, I guess, but do they even ever work on plays with Batum being the focus?

 

I see a great play they could run for Batum that they never take advantage of. When Batum makes the entry into Aldridge for post position and Batum seals his man and goes by to clear out for LA's post-isolation. Aldridge never looks for him on the give and go and with Nic's length advantage over most guys thats an easy bucket instead of an Aldridge fade away back to the basket jumper.

Creativity with the half court sets just isn't there. Watch Adelman's teams. PG has ball out top and he has different options because there is movement instead of clear out. Aldridge will still get his even if the ball doesn't have to be ran through him every time.

 

Hopefully they start running a few plays for Nic, because he has elevated his game. If Wallace is going to be terrible on the road offensively, Nate may as well just play him at PF and move LMA to C. At least Gerald still rebounds on the road. Give Nic 34 mpg for the rest of the trip and see what happens.

 

All it really means is we have a team of slow starters - and always have ever since Nate has been here. The excuse used to always be because Roy is a slow starter, a closer and much better player in the 4th quarter than the 1st. But this team, for years, has had the annoying habit of starting slowly, digging themselves into a huge hole and then trying furiously to come back in the 4th quarter. Roy bailed them out quite often with his 4th quarter heroics, but we don't have Brandon Roy as our go to guy any more. Instead of an icewater-in-his-veins assassin, we have a "go to" guy who is reluctant to take the big shot and looks for a teammate to pass to.

And to assume any increase in second half scoring is due to adjustments Nate made at halftime is just that; a HUGE assumption. To me, it just looks like a team that lacks energy and motivation in the first half, waking up and realizing, "Oh shit, we better start putting forth a little effort or we're going to lose another game we shouldn't". Feeding off the energy of the home crowd helps, but they still fall short more often than not these days, and spotting the home team a 20 point lead when you're on the road is a recipe for disaster. The ONLY adjustment I've seen Nate make in the second half is he tends to play his starters (except for Camby) more minutes. It seems like the players aren't the only ones resorting to desperation tactics to try to dig out of the holes they consistently create in the first half of almost every road game, and about half of the ones at home, too.

BNM