Then why did McMillan have this problem, even more than now, before everyone got injured? It was even harder then to shut down everyone's talent to make Roy look good. Roy complained that he was having to play team ball, and couldn't dominate with Oden and Miller there. The cause of McMillan's centering the world around Roy is not the injuries.
I'm pretty sure it isn't, and hasn't been since he came here. He came to instill "culture" and "playing the right way". His first couple of years he won 21 and 32 games. I'm not saying he hasn't accomplished his goal, but the fact is that his shout at Andre wasn't "you're causing us to lose games!!!" (probably b/c Andre wasn't on the court in the 4th). He shouted "you don't play the way we play".
That was a tough call. Nate was in a no win situation there. Personally I was not sure what he should do. Both Bayless and Martel were playing well in the 4th until the 2-3 minute mark and by then what do you do? Put someone cold back in after sitting so long? It was a toss up IMO.
I see too much focus by folks on the free throw incident. The facts are that after the first one was missed, the Blazers were pretty fucked anyhow. Yea sure we would have had a chance. Sometimes players miss free throws. Especially young ones. They also make mistakes sometimes too, especially when confused by their team mates. The bottom line is, if Portland wins tomorrow vs LA, most folks wont' event remember that game.
Speaking of that missed FT....how many times has Brandon had the ball in his hands with the clock winding down, waiting for the pick to come so he could start the play? Why did he have to look back to the bench and let Mayo steal the ball?
Of course--he leads the league. That's games played. His other streak, his games-started streak of many years, was ended by McMillan, after many other NBA coaches thought he should start. McMillan's system is weird. But I see your point. If he doesn't play due to the fake back problem, his streak will end.
Bullshit. You got this TOTALLY backwards. Miller is EXACTLY what we need in the 4th quarter of close games - and the play-offs. He's EXACTLY what we needed in the last 3:45 of the 4th quarter two nights ago. Every team in the league now knows that the end of the 4th quarter of a close game EVERY play the Blazers run is an ISO - usually for Roy, and apparantly now occasionally for Bayless. When the other team knows you're playing 1-on-5, it's not exactly difficult to stop. Miller gives you better ball movement and another PROVEN scoring option. Miller can post up his man and score inside, and more importantly, he can draw fouls, get the other teams bigs in foul trouble and score easy points from the line. Roy and Bayless also draw fouls, but Miller does it differently - he does it under control. Roy and Miller drive the paint, leave their feet, try to draw contact and hope and pray the ref bales them out with a foul call. It works more for Roy than Bayless, but even in Roy's case, it's not the automatic whistle that Kobe and D-Wade get everytime they enter the lane and leave their feet. Once Roy, and especially Bayless, leave their feet, they are totally at the mercy of the officials. Sometimes they get the call, many times they don't. When they don't, they are stuck forcing up a very difficult shot, which frequently gets blocked (especially in Bayless' case) or a turnover as they lose the ball out of bounds. Watch how Miller draws fouls. He gets into the paint just as easily as Roy or Bayless, but he DOESN'T LEAVE HIS FEET. He stays on the ground and uses ball fakes and head fakes to draw the opposing bigs off their feet. He then draws the contact and the foul. If the big doesn't leave their feet, Miller still has options and usually just passes off to an open teammate. The point is, when Miller drives into the paint, unlike Roy ands Bayless, he is under control, not wildly flailing about hoping for a friendly whistle to bale him out. Roy gets a few superstar "gift" calls, but not as many as some other superstars. Bayless basically still gets treated like a rookie by the officials. Unless he's blatantly tackled, the refs aren't going to bale him out. He needs to learn from Miller how to play under control, get the defense to overcommit, and keep other options available in case they don't. BNM
I agree, the odds of winning after Bayless missed the first free trhrow was very low no matter what Bayless did with the second free throw. I think it is a big issue because of the way Bayless handled it. It basically made this a Roy v. Miller issue . . . and to top it all off, Bayless choose to follow Miller's advise. I think it was a big mistake for Bayless to say all this.
You know I don't buy that. That is because I think like math, and order of operations. First Bayless was told to miss it. Then a few seconds later, another vet shows up and tells him to make it. How is he to know that the coach didn't change his mind and tell him to make it instead, and Miller was just passing the message? The last thing he was told to do is the final thing he would do in a normal situation. Order of operations. The whole fact that people are blowing this up into something like players doing something on purpose to spite the team makes me sick to say the least. There is no logical reason why a team member would ever do anything like that with malice.
This issue is moot. If McMillan had played Miller in the 4th quarter, we would have been well ahead, with no Bayless FT quandary. Also, where was McMillan while teammates were coaching Bayless? Why didn't he hear McMIllan's opinion instead of having to decide between 2 senior teammates?
I don't think anyone was trying to sabatoge the game. I think Roy told him to miss then Miller told him to make it because they both thought that was the best stategy. I didn't like that Bayless told the media about it. My thought is if Bayless got two different instructions, wouldn't he have hashed this out in the locker room before talking to the press. It should have been a discussion where Roy and Miller say their bad for not communicating cleary and Bayless not mentioning all this to the press. I think Bayless just fed the fuel of Miller v. Roy as that is how many fans who quickly read about it will take it. I like your point about why Bayless made it. Maybe he wasn't choosing between Roy or Miller but thought the coaching staff changed stategies. Hell maybe if Bayless was trying to make the first and missed, Miller tried to get another miss by telling him to make it. But my point is Miller seems to be clashing with some and Bayless just helped the media with his statements about the freethrows . . . in fact is Bayless throwing Miller under the bus? Because you don't want to be put up against Roy in this town.
I was just going off what Quick said, and he said he heard Andre say that during their 'heated exchange' to the coaching staff. Maybe embarrassing him as to how he's been treated, and not playing in the fourth quarter? Who knows. Coaching staff I believe.
Absolutely. A great coach adapts his system to fit his personnel, an average (stubborn?) coach tries to fit personnel to a system. Is it any accident that Rick Adelman can seem to blend together a bunch of role players that play greater than the sum of their parts, yet Nate can't seem to wrap his brain around doing anything but featuring a single wing scorer. Sickening.
Sometimes I wonder what would have happened all those years ago if Whitsitt had just kept Adelman on board much like a Jerry Sloan. Then I get despressed and figure it's a good thing to stop thinking about that, and move back to the reality of the current injury plagued season.
When I read Nate saying that Dre doesn't play the way he wants him to play I get the feeling Nate would be the kind of guy that would buy a sports car, put on a tow package and then haul garbage with it.
