I'm flabbergasted by how well the Blazers are playing; it almost defies logic. And it"s not just our record--6 games over .500--but the way these guys are playing together, passing the ball, playing team defense, encouraging each other, believing in themselves, etc. All that kind of stuff starts with the coaching staff, and they've done an outstanding job with all of the injuries we've had. I can't think of any coach in the league who has gotten more out of his team this year than Nate McMillan.
Some posters here who won't be named believe McMillan deserves little credit for how the team has performed this year. Those posters are stupid. The Blazers need to extend him.
I would never call out Mediocre_Man in a thread like this! McMillan has done a terrific job this year.
This man can get blood out of a turnip - no one would have blamed him if everything fell apart, and it's to his credit that not only are we still afloat, but we're actually gaining speed. EDIT: almost no one
Nate's been great but lets ease it up a little bit. We haven't exactly been going through title contenders of late. We've been giving up big leads in the last few games and letting a lesser opponent come back and make a game of it. Aldridge being the reason we won all of them, so something tells me it's going to catch up to us and we're going to hit one of those inevitable slides that will set this board ablaze. But, I remain hopeful that we'll make a late season surge with Roy and Camby coming back; and with the way LA's been playing I could see us scaring some teams in the playoffs.
The Spurs win was the biggest win of the season, the Bulls aren't contenders imo but they're a very good team so impressive wins. LA was amazing in both, so that's kinda my point.
I guess you could say the version of the Bulls the Blazers played aren't contenders because Noah didn't play, but overall imo they are a contender. They have a legitimate MVP candidate and a top 5 record in the NBA.
How come some threads extol our depth that Pritchard supposedly got, while threads like this say how McMillan's doing so much with so little? We fight for victory against the worst teams, right to the last minute. What's he doing with Batum? Why can't he design plays that give Rudy an extra second to show his shooting talent? Why didn't the team pass for alley-oops till Miller and Rudy started ignoring McMillan's conservative style? Why couldn't he teach both Roy and Aldridge to play like stars together, instead of knowing only how to star one guy at a time? The faults of Aldridge while submitting to Roy are now the faults of Batum while submitting to Aldridge (plays soft, inconsistent, hovers outside waiting for his moment, etc.).
It's hard to fault the hustle & play that is happening on this team with the absence of Roy & Oden. Though, as I've mentioned elsewhere, this probably doesn't have much to do with Nate & more to do with the players. Frankly Nate suffers when we're not underhanded. His rotations look confused and as though he doesn't know how to use his players. His handling of Oden(when he was healthy) was pretty terrible. The "two foul rule" & the "Oden just needs to concentrate on defense" game plan were stupid. Plus his inability to get beyond Roy isolation basketball & play a more team oriented style like what we're doing now. Part of that inability may be because he was a wuss and wouldn't man up to a selfish Roy, which appears to have also lead to the Andre Miller fiasco. He either didn't have a system that could use Miller properly or he was too chicken to tell Roy to STFU. Another thing to note is that we're playing this "team ball" now that he has new assistants, so when I see what appears to be perhaps a different system after he gets new assistants, I might be more willing to give credit to the assistants than to Nate, based off of what he produced over the last couple years. Everyone is also a year older and has had more time to gel. The team's success is riding on the coattails of LaMarcus' all-star caliber breakout season plus some great play from Matthews & Miller along with Rudy coming back into form. How much do these things have to do with Nate? I am not quite sure, but it's certainly not obvious what his contribution is besides being a typical coach. Perhaps he has an undermanned team, but that seems to be where he does better, because he doesn't have to make hard choices(just play who you have). The idea that Nate is inspiring these guys to play hard is insulting to the players, they're not quitters and with LaMarcus in full force they now have someone that truly gives them confidence that they can win rather than a coach that uses idioms like "Square Your Shoulders, Contain The Ball".
Not to Camby, apparently. Just last week he attributed the Blazers success despite the injuries to "coaching."
please post quote of exactly what camby said. Perhaps, I should rectify my statement as such: "The idea that Nate is the main thing inspiring these guys to play hard is insulting to the players...". Camby also has nice things to say about LaMarcus: http://www.oregonlive.com/blazers/index.ssf/2011/02/blazers_marcus_camby_coy_when.html I am not expecting Camby to throw anyone under a bus and suggesting "coaching" as a factor is a pretty typical/formal response, but obviously it's not the only reason Camby thinks we're winning. Given that we don't know exactly how much Camby attributes to coaching, it's kind of up in the air. My main point was more in response to people suggesting things like "Nate could get blood from turnips" which is pretty silly. If Nate had turnips out there he would only have a record slightly better than the Cavaliers.
Some of you guys are really funny. nate has changed his entire offensive philosophy, and is wininng and even losing games the way he should. Under the ISO offense, our team would have gone nowhere in the playoffs, EVER. the Blazers are FINALLY going inside out, which a lot of the people who have an issue with Nate were complaining about. I think a lot of that is because we have new assistants, which nate was forced to get. Nate has always got a lot out of a depleated team, and I have said that many times. My issue was his rotations and offensive and defensive set, which have all improved because of assistant coaches and the inability to fuck up rotations because we don't have anyone. He has to play his best players major minutes. That will backfire, but that's not his fault.
No, it's not. I don't have the link because it's something Camby said recently when interviewed during a live game. When asked how the Blazers were able to play so well, despite all the injuries, he said, "I have to attribute it to our coaching."
I don't think he's coach of the year material until we see how he handles the return of Roy. Once he dropped the ill-advised 1st & 2nd unit rotations, this team played a whole lot better IMHO. If he returns to the same mentality when there are more healthy players, then he's learned nothing.
