Yep and that's my biggest beef with Nate. He's got the dominance on his roster to dictate the tempo (which so far this season he has) and force other teams to change their game plan during games (Only once have I seen this against SAS).
There were so many break downs in the Golden State game I don't really think you can judge how that works overall from that game. The Blazers basically had to play as bad as they could, at both ends of the floor, in order for Golden State to win like they did. Not only did we not use our size to defend, but we didn't use it properly to score. We went small and jacked up a lot of jumpers. A lot of jumpers = lots of transition buckets which are hard for a guard with size to make a difference on. If we would have kept them to a half court game, then our guards size would have made a difference. I am buying the drinks when Nate goes to a 3 guard rotation of Roy, Fernandez, and Bayless. Too bad that's never going to happen.
Yes, but it can still start with a Roy iso. The best basket of the last game was Roy going to the rim from the Iso and delivering a wrap-around pass to Oden for a dunk. I did not say that we only need to run Roy Isolation plays, but they should be a much bigger part of our offense than what we have seen with Miller handling the ball. At this point - more Roy, some Oden. When/if Oden develops and can handle the ball, pass out of the double-team and cut on his turn-overs, some more Oden, but Roy still has to be a very big part of the offense. Let's face it, with the way the rules are in the NBA now - it's the wing players that determine the offense more than the bigs. The last time a big carried a team to a ring was the early 2000s Shaq teams - and honestly, no-one is going to ref the games like this anymore (even if we believe Greg will ever be as good on offense as Shaq was in his prime, which is a reach). For Greg to be effective - the same stuff that happens with Roy's isolation plays need to happen, we need to space the floor. Otherwise, a perimeter player can double on Greg an you leave a 20% 3P shooter as the only open guy (Miller). OK, so again, you do not think that Miller is good for Greg's inside-out game mostly. Miller had 4 cutting to the middle baskets in the entire season from Greg in the post plays. That's not an offensive system - unless you have a beast like LeBron barreling into the post that you can not physically stop. Going through Greg is a good thing, in moderation at this point until he gets better taking care of the ball - but it is not a great weapon unless you have lots of shooters outside.
You are right on the money....Teams ARE shutting down Roy's iso attempts, I don't know how anyone could deny that hasn't happened...Seriously what have you been watching? And even IF you go back to that "play" why oh why would you have Blake alongside Roy instead of the FAR FAR more versatile Rudy Fernandez? It defies logic....
