Hey Nate: [video=youtube;7LNITt85-Rc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LNITt85-Rc&feature=related[/video]
I thought Joel played well tonight. When he is back in the groove he will give this team some much needed toughness. I think Joel and Camby will start to feed off each other, and maybe from there . . .
hope springs eternal, I love Joel and what he has brought to the Blazers and camby is a class act, but Joel's very likely gone after this yr and Camby the yr after, time to trade them by deadline for value if we can
After watching this game I turned on Dallas vs Utah just so I could remember what good basketball looked like again. Utah and Dallas reminded me quickly what it looked like, and I enjoyed the rest of the game. Ball movement. Players moving off the ball. Nobody catching the ball and just standing there doing nothing for 5 to 8 seconds. 3 or 4 passes for a score. Passing up a good shot for a better shot. Now let's compare that to Blazer second half offense: Pass ball into Roy. Roy faces up and stands there waiting for something, staring towards the hoop. Nobody on the team moves. 3 seconds have gone by. Nobody has cut. Nobody has moved. Everybody is paralyzed, waiting in anticipation for what Roy will do. Roy still stares intently towards the basket, waiting for something. What is he waiting for? Another 4 seconds goes by. Nobody has moved. Roy, seeing the shot clock running down, dribbles into traffic, dribbling it off his foot, or jacking up a bad shot in traffic. Washington gets the rebound play over. That was pretty much the offense for the whole second half. If it wasn't Roy, it was somebody else standing around holding the ball too long, waiting for something to happen that wasn't ever going to happen.
I need to be reminded what basketball period looks like after that game... good lord it's like they had the equipment but didn't know the object or the rules!
I think that's the crux of the whole problem with this team. When Roy is in the game the other players are so used to deferring to him and letting him play one-on-five that they just clear out and wait for the possibility that he might kick it out to them off of a drive ... except now Roy seems to have lost most of his ability or willingness to pass the ball. It's going to take somebody sitting him down and having a "Facts of Life" chat with him and probably moving him to the bench where he can be a Jamal Crawford bench scorer before thiings are going to get better with this team. Ultimately, if Nate gets fired I half-way expect Andre Miller to do what he did in Philly when Cheeks was fired and basically become the coach on the floor and dictate the way this team is going to play. If that happens they might actually start to develop a team ball identity, or at least an up-tempo identity that takes better advantage of Nic, LMA, Matthews and Camby's skills
