There are some great match-ups in this series. Speaking strictly of the starting 5s where will out biggest advantage be?
Our best starting lineup advantage is obviously Aldridge. But, our best overall advantage over the Rockets will be our depth.
I gotta agree with that; after looking at these matchups, I'd rate Brooks even with Blake, Roy even with Artest and Yao and Battier ahead of Przbilla and Batum, so that doesn't look so good, but I'm still optimistic.
I like Books, lol, i kid, anyway, as an outside fan, I would agree with the others that LA is your biggest advantage in mismatches.
Our biggest advantage is our Bench.. if Outlaw, Rudy, Sergio and Oden bring it..we win this series. When our bench is playing well - Teams just can't handle our depth... Portland wins in 6.
It's Aldridge over Scola, but that's not what I'm worried about, it's Chuck Hayes vs Aldridge which has given LMA fits this year.
Brandon is a superior player to either overall (especially his offense vs. theirs) but their defense is so good so suffocating (and Artest is so physical) that they are really going to blunt Brandon's effectiveness as an scorer, I have a feeling Brandon is going to be doing a lot more distributing and having to get his offense off of cuts and catch-and-shoots in this series than we are used to seeing; he's almost going to have to be a decoy at times and then be opportunistic when opportunities present themselves. This a really bad matchup for Portland ... probably as bad as Joel/Oden vs. Yao.
I'm worried about the quickness of Brooks, and his outside shooting over Blake. Last time IIRC he killed Blake. When Brooks drives, he'll cause the D to collapse which can easily cause us to not play the bigs as well.
Couple of thoughts: Sscola is underrated. Teams normally shorten the rotation in the plyaoffs, so if Blazers are relying on their bench, the bench squad will most likely have to play against the other teams starters (or top 7 players). Personally I am counting on the Blazer top 7 beating the Rockets top 7.
But why do teams shorten their rotation in the playoffs? Because their starters are so much better than their bench, and the playoffs are so important (and the summer potentially so close) that they need to ride the starters harder. In that light, I don't think we need to shorten our rotation much - we've got a great bench with at least three players who would start on other teams (Greg, Rudy, Travis). So play them as usual, and our starters will be fresher against their starters. Advantage Portland.
This is what I'd like to see in the playoffs. Enact something akin to Nolan Richardson's "[48] Minutes of Hell". Simply press the hell out of the other team, run our players through screen after screen after screen and simply wear their starters out. I think Rudy, Sergio and Batum could make life tough for Battier, Artest and Brooks/Lowry.
if that's true(i don't really agree that it is), then the blazers could be in some trouble. the rockets have a pretty good bench with lowry, wafer, and landry being the main guys. hayes and mutombo provide a defensive presence which will probably be needed against aldridge and oden and barry adds some extra shooting. i wouldn't count on the blazers bench significantly outplaying the rockets bench to make the difference in the series.
Devils advocate says there are more and longer timeouts/breaks in playoff basketball...benches mean slightly less since starters can go for longer
I didn't say Brandon has no chance, I just said his offense against their defense is a bad matchup, if other guys can step up and act as a reasonable 'release valve' when he's being hounded and doubled to death then it will make his life easier and should give him some more room to operate. Honestly, a lot of it's going to come down to how the refs call the game; if they allow Artest to really get into Brandon bumping him and pushing him on his way to the hoop then there's just no way Brandon will be able to overcome that disparity in strength, if they call it a little tighter and don't let Artest get away with a lot of bodying up on the perimeter then I think he'll have to back off a little bit and that could be just enough for Brandon to get to his spots and do his damage. What, you somehow think Brandon's offense against arguably two of the best perimeter wing defenders in the league is somehow a good matchup?!
I don't think you understand what I mean by a "bad matchup", I'm not talking about the opponent's wing being able to outscore him, I'm talking about the opposing wing being able to lock him down and force him into bad shots, which takes our number 1 option and hurts his effectiveness on the court, which in turn leads to a much less efficient offense overall, because A) he's not hitting anywhere near his season averages on FG%, and B) if he's passing it off, chances are it's going into the hands of a less effecient shooter. Battier and Artest don't have to outplay him on both ends to win, they just have to 'blunt the tip of the spear' so to speak and let other guys like Yao carry the primary load offensively. Brandon's 3 games this year against the Rockets: Game 1: 6-18 FG (33%), 1-3 three pointers, 17 points, 5 assists 7 rebounds, 5 turnovers Game 2: 10-23 FG (42%), 0-4 three pointsers, 24 points, 5 assists, 5 rebounds, 3 turnovers Game 3: 8-20 FG (40%), 2-5 three pointers, 23 points, 6 assists, 3 rebounds, 2 turnovers Overall: 39% FG, 25% on threes. Points, rebounds and assists are roughly the same as his season averages, but 3.3 turnovers per game isn't so hot.
