It makes no sense to play the 4th quarter differently than every other quarter

Great Post UDUB

Totally agree. Brandon looked like a little-used appendage out there when Andre was on the floor, esp. in the 4th. Nate had to acknowledge this with about 3 mins. left in the game; he pulled Dre and put the ball back in Roy’s hands in order to ice the win.

The good news? Brandon has shown himself to be a tireless worker and a clever adapter. I am confident that he and Dre will quickly learn to work together on the court and Brandon will improve his off-ball skills.

but, they do

The Blazers could use more variety in their fourth quarter offensive sets. Sure. I agree with you generally. But does that mean Dre should mainly handle the ball and Brandon should play off the ball? Uh… absolutely not.

First, do you really think Brandon and Andre are in the same league in terms of creating efficient offense? They’re not. Andre is a good solid point guard who creates good solid looks. Brandon is one of the most devastating individual offensive weapons in the league.

Big difference. When you have a weapon like that, you use him.

Second, there absolutely is a reason why the offense is different down the stretch. Can there really be any question that the Blazers were most efficient last year with B-Roy on iso? He scored at an insane clip in crunch time. He attacked the bucket relentlessly. He manufactured points when the Blazers needed them most. This was a big part of the reason why Portland won most of their close games.

Why not do that all game? Simple. He can’t.

Neither can Lebron or Wade or Kobe. Nobody can withstand the physical pounding you take attacking the rack every possession on an iso. Bron tried to do it against Orlando in the ECF last year, and he was completely gassed by the end of every game. He made uncharacteristic turnovers as a result.

 I am not saying that last night the Blazers looked good with Brandon isolating. Far from it. I think Brandon is rusty after an inactive (basketball wise) summer, and he will continue to be rusty. But last night was not a close game, and last night was not the whole season. In crunch time, Brandon’s still got to be the man.

The answer to this question is very simple: because Brandon Roy wouldn’t be able to keep it up all game long. I’m not necessarily a fan of the “give the rock to your star in crunch time and get out of the way” school of 4th quarter offense, but it’s a time-honored NBA tradition. Oscar Robertson’s team did it. Jordan’s team did it. LeBron’s team does it. So does Kobe’s team, though less than they used to.

Why? Because when the team really, really needs a hoop, coaches tend to put their faith in their “go-to” player. That guy not only has more offensive ability than his teammates, but he’s used to taking big shots so he’s less likely to choke. In theory, if the other team collapses on him, he can exploit that by hitting a wide-open teammate for the shot.

Either way, it’s an energy-intensive exercise for your star, so there’s no way he can do it all game long. He must conserve some energy during the first three quarters in order to have enough in the tank for that final push.

What the 4th Q looked like to me is that people lost their legs, shots started missing and people started turning the ball over so Brandon took over at the end. In doing so he righted the ship, got some easy baskets (although he missed a couple he usually makes), got to the free throw line to get us some more easy points, made a huge block on the defensive end and ended up with his usual strong stat line even though his shot was off… and we won! (Phewww world’s longest run on sentence)

Just another, “I love Brandon but he’s all wrong” thread to me.

We’re 1-0… Beat the Rockets… Oden played like a MANSTER on D… Andre made a freakin’ 3!.. we had a run with the 2nd unit that was beautiful!!!.. Roy is my hero… End of Story (what the heck did I do with my glass of Kool Aid and those darn Rose Colored glasses?.. gotta be here somewhere)

GO BLAZERS!!!

Emulate the Mike Brown playbook.

Great post.

. . . which 2 points were the margin of victory? ANY two points scored ANY time, 1st quarter or 4th. Nice post UDUB. Kudos and rec for some contrarian thinking.

~ Munky

The 4th quarter IS different than the other quarters.

Firstly, the isolation play works better when defenders are tired, and as we know, Roy works really well when he can get that 1/8th to 1/4 step advantage and the weakside help is slower in coming over. Additionally, Roy gets to the free throw line ALOT, and when the big guys inside are sitting on 4 or 5 fouls, they are less likely to put the hammer down or go for a risky block or try to draw a charge than they would early in the game.

Additionally, the game is (generally) only 4 quarters long. When you put maximum effort out in the first quarter, you risk getting run in the second quarter by a fresher opponent, but you don’t need to worry about getting run on the way to the bus. Also, you don’t need to worry about getting guys into ‘rhythm’ or into the flow of a game by that point, so it’s okay to tell them to stand in the corner and try to crash the boards.

Lastly, obviously with a lead you want to slow a game down to the point where the other team simply can’t score enough points to come back, even if you don’t score much. So that means preserving as much energy as possible for defense and using all 24 seconds of the shot clock. A typical offense works to create a good look at any point in the shot clock; the isolation offense typically creates a okay to decent look at the last few seconds, because it never requires extra passes or for guys to turn down the decent looks and wait for something better.

Some good points and counter points.

… and people would still find fault.

I certainly am not going to start picking apart the Blazer’s game strategy after just one game (or 10). They won. Easily. The fact they let a 20 point lead get down to 6 is irrelevant.

First is that we heard that Nate was imploring more drives to the basket and fewer jump shots in that last quarter. Brandon is our best driver and Andre is the second best driver. Both drove to the basket in the 4th quarter but there was mostly jump-shooting before Brandon took over. It should be noted that in this game all three of our Bigs were in foul trouble and that is very rare. With their loss the Rockets could play more effectively to guard the paint and prevent driving.

Second is the numbers last night tell a different story then that Brandon was our offense in the 4th quarter – Brandon shot 5 times in the quarter and converted only 1 but also drew 4 foul shots and converted all four. The rest of the team shot 14 times, converting 5 with 4 fouls shots converting 3. Andre shot 6 times and converted 2 with no foul shots. Brandon scored 6 and Miller scored 5.

Brandon played 8 minutes of the quarter and Miller played 10. Brandon’s plus/minus in the game went from +3 to -1 during the 4th quarter while Miller’s plus/minus went from +12 to +1. Brandon had 4 rebounds and Miller 0. Miller had 2 assists and Brandon 0. Brandon did not have a turnover and Miller had one. The numbers (and the visual as well) indicate that Miller was mostly settling for jump shots while Brandon drove the lane for at least three of his baskets drawing fouls on two of them. The numbers support what has been described above – that the offense stagnated in the 4th quarter and Brandon had to return about 5 minutes early as the lead evaporated. Brandon with Miller did succeed in stemming the tide.

Finally the points you made are still valid in the sense that ideally we see an efficient offensive sets run through the entire game. I watched LeBron do the opposite the entire game yesterday and Brandon is not yet at LeBron’s level (maybe never will be). But when the offense breaks down he rescues it with his iso plays. He is really the only Blazer who can do so. I do not believe this is a bad thing. Brandon is our weapon that nobody can stop. No other Blazer comes close. Miller will develop the chemistry to play better with each of the team members with experience. The fear is that it does become macho on macho. A valid fear I believe as Miller is accustomed to being the man and so is Brandon. Of course nearly everyone acknowledges that Brandon is the better player. I think time will shake this out and both should continue timprove while on the floor together.

All teams run isos in crunch time. Plays that work well during the rest of the game are often based on mismatches and lapses of attention by the defense. Those advantages tighen up in crun ch time. Iso play also exploits mismatches forcing the defense to yield the wide-open shot or yield the score to the iso player for not double-teaming him. These are just my ignorant observations so perhaps you still have differing views. I think this is an easy win without the foul troubles for LMA, Joel and Greg. The progenitor being LMA, presumably Joel and Greg had more defensive pressure on them to defend the basket without him. I do remember the years when it seemed that the only offense we had in crunch time was Mighty Mouse and that was a long 3-pointer! Oh how far we have come.

I appreciate your post and your passion. I do hope your fears are resolved as the team becomes accustomed to playing together.

Defenders are not “broken down” at the beginning of the game. After a defender has beaten on a drive left, one right, backdoor, stop ‘n’ pop, etc … a dominant player needs to merely twitch their toe to get the defender to bite. I think MJ was amazing at this: he would pepper his offense all over the floor so that the defender would be largely paralyzed in the 4th. That said, and entire quarter of one on five is brutal to watch … unless my team is winning :) I agree with the above points, though (other than putting Travis in for D)

to the first quarter.

Does it make sense to use LMA mostly in the first quarter, then not much at all through the rest of the game?

I feel like last year we got most of our easy looks when we played it in to LaMarcus in the first quarter.