Dave from Blazersedge puts his finger on something important ...

It's not really lack of fire. It's lack of defense at the guard positions. When your defense is porous it's hard to get fired up.

 

1. It isn't Sloans fault the Jazz ran into MJ in the finals.
2. One of the coaches mentioned in the rest of your paragraph is not like the others. Guess which one, and guess who doesn't even deserve to be in the discussion?
3. Phil and Doc both are fiery. They will get T's to protect their team. They will take a 25k fine to get their point across to the officials. They will dig on their players, publically if necessary to get them to play the right way. Has Nate ever done any of that?

 

= San Antonio = several championships.

 

I think that what we need is that the players start feeling and knowing that they are good and headed toward gratness. I believe this team is going to know this this month. With healthy players and pracitice time they are going to gel and the woes of the coach and the porus defense will disapear and they are going to know they are really good. The only thing keeping this from happening sooner this year has been the injuries of the past. With the addition of Canby we are already progressing in the last four games and with that aditional practice time we are going to be dangerous to anyone on the docket.

"THE ALTER MIXUM" me some Blazers!!!!!!!!

 

= Bruce Bowen, one of the dirtiest nastiest defensive players in the past 20 years.

 

LOL! What the hell have these Houston and Denver teams won? Dave is reaching big time here.

 

FWIW, I think you raise a valid issue. As was mentioned in a previous thread, the Blazers aren't a team that picks up many floorburns. The old guys - Miller and Howard - are more likely to dive after a loose ball than many of their younger team-mates. Physically, Camby is no more gifted as a rebounder than LMA....but his aggression is on an entirely different level.


They are "tough" in the sense that they didn't just give up in the face of injuries - but not in the "that loose ball is MINE and I will kill you if you get in my way!" sense. That's one of the areas where losing Joel really hurt.

 

They also had Ferry, who was arguably the most hated player in the league.

More to the point, Duncan/Robinson didn't get in their team-mates faces in public (like Kobe or KG), but they were outspoken in the locker-room. They both had plenty of fire in their belly.

 

The Blazers overachieved last year to get 54 wins. They've overachieved this year to be in the playoff hunt despite all the injuries. I think this whole thing about not having fire is pure bunk.

 

Phil is fiery? You've got to be kidding me. The Zen Master?

It seems like people are confusing getting a technical as being fiery. I would all but guarantee that Nate yells and screams way more than Phil.

Based on your criteria, we need a coach that gets tech and calls out his players publicly. Sounds like you think Don Nelson would be a perfect fit.

How is it Nate's fault that we have a collection of softer players?

 

I agree.

Also, the Blazer's star and leader has fire. Roy leaves it on the court night in and night out (throw away those 10 games with the mystery hamstring). He has willed the team to victory on many occassions.

I think being soft defensively in the paint is being interpreted as having no heart. But Dave doesn't make much sense to me to say that the team (unlike other teams) don't "rip away" wins or that when excellence, brilliance, and excitement isn't enough, Blazers can't win because they can't do more (whatever that means). Blazers have shown the ability to come from behind, to win close games down the stretch and to buckle down and win the fourth quater to win games.

This team might not be as physical other teams, but they have the heart, fire and pride it takes to win games . . . and they have been doing that this season.

 

Say what you will, but Phil Jackson is an enormously successful coach. He doesn't go insane like Nate does, but his words carry weight. That is because he is quietly intense. Are you going to tell me that over his career that he hasn't had a tremendous amount of success getting players to play the right way by calling them out in public? Are you going to tell me that Phil Jackson hasn't had a ton of success taking $25k fines for calling out the refs about the way they called a basketball game? Comparing him to Don Nelson in order to try and belittle my statement is a far reach at best. Don Nelson is a small ball coaching loser who puts his players in a position to fail and then blames them for the failure in the press after the fact. Phil Jackson puts his players in a position to succeed and calls them out when extra motivation is needed to push the team a little bit further, or when they are acting like a child and not listening, so they need to be called out so their ruse is up. Two completely different situations.

Secondly, I never said Nate was responsible for any of the current players being here. So I have no idea what you are referring to there.

 

Interesting article about Roy trying to become more focused to go hard all the time and be the constant hard-ass.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_y...?slug=mc-royblazers031610&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

With some heavy praise from Mr. Kobe Bryant.

 

So basically even Roy agrees ...

 

I think Roy have had it before, his playoffs performance was nothing short of amazing, allow me to remind you - but when he had trouble getting to play off the ball earlier this year people were bitching that he can not share the ball, can not be a part of the team.

I am going back to what I said earlier in the year - for this team to go forward and succeed, we need to accept that Roy is an elite player and you need to make him happy and comfortable running the offense. That's where it starts, that's where it ends. Anything else we get from the other guys is great, but it's a secondary concern. I love what Greg has done at the beginning of the year, but it still has to be a secondary thing to Roy running the offense. We were trying too hard to force it to him on the block - and that's a big reason this team, earlier this year, was only 10th in offensive efficiency. Love what he does and love establishing the interior play, but it has to come as a secondary tool to Roy attacking.

Andre Miller has finally started to look as part of this team by (surprise, surprise) doing what the coaching staff preach - protect the ball, reduce turn-overs, try to minimize his jump-shots and attack the rim - and you know why it looks good - because it works with Roy being the main guy when it counts. Roy dictates how it goes and the offense looks much better.

Again, I am just not buying this entire thing that this team is not tough - and that Roy is not capable to be a hard-ass, he has been for a long time - and it should be encouraged.

There are very tough guys on this team, and it starts with Roy - and they would not be as successful given the adversity they faced this year - if they were not tough.

 

I didn't say he's incapable, but even he admits that he hasn't been a 'dick' enough or ruthless enough.

 

First off, I think Phil has had a ton of success, and I'm not trying to discount what he's done. However, I think you are WAY off with the reasoning for his success. I think his success in the NBA is mainly do to three things.

1) He's almost always had 2 HOF players on his roster at a given time. That helps a ton.

2) He has a very good offensive system and has been given time to teach it to a core group for a long period of time.

3) He allows his superstars to call out their teammates and hold people accountable. Michael and Kobe are two of the most competitive people to ever play, and I don't think you can give Phil much credit for that.

I don't think Nate getting a random T every few games and calling LMA soft in the media will catapult us into championship contention. Am I wrong?

 

I think he was a lot more last year - but this year, given the other players on the team - Miller needing the ball, Oden needing touches - and the emphasis on making sacrifices for the team that they had earlier in the year - it seems that Roy has sacrificed a lot of his game - and the reality is that the vets were smart enough to notice that he is doing too much of it - remember Howard telling him "to stand out" and Camby telling him to shoot more.

I just think that this is a trait of a team that was "raised" on the idea that they need to get-along and respect each other - and maybe, just maybe, it is time to accept that ISO plays for Roy and playing to his strength by encouraging him to be more selfish is a good thing.

I also think, however, that the idea that this team is not tough is just out of touch with reality. They would not have done what we have seen them do this year without being tough. Not going to happen. They might have started with tons more talent that most teams - but they played a very large portion of this year being behind on the talent level - when you actually look at the players on the court at any time. This is a team that had, for long periods of time, featured Webster (a career backup SF, it seems), Howard (undersized, old) as their starting SF and Center, playing next to Aldridge (which had bad sprain for a long time and played through it) - and even went through a stretch where the starting SG was Bayless (love his enthusiasm, but he is raw and inconsistent) - and yet they did not fold in this case, they did not do a 1-9 stretch like we have seen the Raptors just go through.

 

This isn't about Isos and playcalling, it's about Roy knowing when his team needs a lift and for him to take over and carry them ... but I still contend that even if Roy taps into his inner badass fully, he's still going to need at least one and possibly two more players with that same killer instinct to follow him -- I see it budding in Nic, Dante plays with a chip on his shoulder, but there are a whole lot of guys left who I see playing without that certain level of 'hardness'

 

This so called "softness" or "not always going hard" imho was exactly because of that this year, there was a backlash at him, on this very board (not to mention other analysts on national media) for trying to do it, for needing the ball, for not playing well off the ball - so, like a good guy, he did, at time - let Miller lead, let others do it.

I thought Oden was definitely playing mean in the beginning of the year before he went down. That first game against SAS - in the Rose Garden - you saw him running hard after balls bumping Duncan. You hear d about him reminding the team not to take OKC lightly when they went there and won - and quite frankly, we have seen it in Oden in the past in College play.

Add Nic, Bayless, and at times LMA - and this team has these guys. They had it in Joel as well - but, who knows how it is going to be with him going forward. Dante and Pendergraph seem to play hard as well - so, overall - this is really not the area that worries me about this team. I just do not question their heart or desire.