That's a pretty simplistic representation of the offense. There's the Miller post-up game. The Roy iso. We're trying to post up Wallace. The Miller/Rudy give-and-go. Rudy curl with the optional lob to Aldridge. Aldridge pick-and-pop. Back door lob. Camby/Aldridge high/low. Running Batum or Rudy off screens. That's just off the top of my head. The problem is that none of these plays work when your team is hitting three pointers at a sub-.300 clip, because there's no space to do any of that. Particularly against good defensive teams like Atlanta. You can run all the plays you want, but if there are 5 defenders in the paint it ain't gonna work. The play your coworker describes is the go-to play when all that other stuff isn't working. It's the best of a bunch of bad options when the three ball isn't dropping, so it's what we go to to try to get out of that funk. It's actually kind of a luxury to have a go-to play like that when your team goes through a drought (as every team does). It looks as depressing as that email describes when it doesn't work, but it beats the crap out of just walking up the court and jacking bad shots (which is what a lot of teams have to do.)
First of all, that "one and only option" produced a 6-game winning streak. Second, we've always had more options than Aldridge posting up. Regular parts of our offense include Batum shooting the three, Wesley Matthews driving to the hoop, Andre Miller posting up or hitting the 12-foot jump shot, etc. Not to mention the lob pass to Aldridge, which works extremely well. Last night was a fluke. It happened. Let's not draw huge conclusions based on one game.
We have had players cutting to the basket when LA has the ball and was pretty effective with it, but teams are playing it better now and we are not hitting outside jumpers. But it's a joke to say the Blazers don't ever do that.
A great passer at the center of the wheel helps. Walton was so great with cutters revolving around him. On TV nowadays, he says increduously with sarcasm, "Where are the CUTTERS???"
Yeah... I agree. The win streak MIGHT be the fluke, but at this point I tend to think it's more valuable as a point of reference than a single game where we were integrating our starting center and a newly acquired guy into the rotation. Ed O.
