The Offense

by goblazer1 on Oct 30, 2009 10:25 AM PDT Comment 2 comments

Portland needs to run some offense in the 4th quarter. Last night, everything was one on one, or one pass and one on one. They weren't running any kind of coherent offense. Sure, a pick and rolls and curls are nice, but Portland needs to make the defense work more. That means getting the ball to move from one side to the other, forcing the defense to rotate. I think this is one reason we struggle against Denver, where they have individual strength and athleticism, but maybe not the discipline to rotate against ball movement.

It seemed like at the beginning of the game with Blake in there they were successful with running patterns, moving the ball around and forcing the defense to rotate. This gets people the ball in positions to get higher percentage shots. When Miller came in it was all one on one, pick and roll, one or two passes and tough shot.

Portland just really needs to run offensive sets in the fourth quarter. This has been a consistent weakness of this team over the years, in my opinion.

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it did look really disjointed

I think part of the problem is Blake looks like a starter on a short leash (which he is). If Nate truly believes Blake is the better option right now, he’s got to give him a little run so he can build some confidence and rhythm. By benching him after one stupid play, Nate showed his reasons for wanting Blake and Roy on the floor at the same time are not all that convincing (even to him). This makes Blake play with one eye on the bench, and he looks tepid as a result.

I remember the same thing happening with Sergio in the playoffs last year. Once Sergio made one mistake, Nate would pull him. This had the doubly terrible result of destroying Sergio’s confidence and wearing Steve out. If Nate’s belief in Steve as this team’s point guard can be overridden by one play, there’s no sense in starting him at all.

by atomiccafe on Oct 30, 2009 11:16 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

What makes you believe that Blake is that good?

He does have a leash and for good reason. What is wrong with this offense is Nate! He worked all preseason on the team’s defense that he forgot working on the offense. That was real stupid! I am sorry but the defense was pretty bad against Denver. The offense was worse but it was still bad. Since this is about the O, let’s talk it. It was flat and boring. Every year our Head Coach says that he wants to run more but it turns out that he’s a liar. Well its either that or he’s not as good a coach as we all seem to think that he is. In game 1 this season we had 26 turnovers and only 8 in game 2. That was the only improvement from from the Houston game.
Blake is a horrible starting PG – FACT! All he can do is shoot the 3 and when that isn’t falling down, he does nothing. And that happens only once every 4 games. Nate should have started Miller in every preseason game instead of the 3/4 that he did. That would have helped a great deal.
Another thing is we have no style of playing, are we a pick and roll team or a princeton offense or a run and gun team? Nate talks about a balanced team with 2 units playing offense and defense but you can’t do it half way. The offense has to be balanced as well i.e every player should have the same amout of shots. We have the talent to share the scoring load, if guys like Roy and LMA are struggling then we should be able to go to Oden, Rudy, Outlaw and Webster. Instead we are forcing our ‘stars’ to keep shooting bricks. Why have the depth and not trust them? And how about the lack of energy that they played with? Why are we walking the ball up the court against a team playing an the road and the second of a back 2 back? Yeah so we had 26 TOs playing Houston but I’d rather we had 13 TOs and pushed the ball whenever we got the rebound. This is what Blake can’t do, he isn’t a good enough dribbler to push the ball. And now that Webster is starting, we have our shooter to spread the floor that we don’t need Blake to start.
So in short, Nate grow some testicles and let this team run! Of course you need to drop Blake and START ANDRE!
P.S -Spend some time working on the offense as well.

by VinnyB on Oct 30, 2009 8:06 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs