this Miller signing is turning this team upside down. Last year everyone had a role set for themselves now Nate doesnt know what to do with Miller and the lineups. Why did they bring Miller in get this guy out. What a pathetic and desperate signing.

Mac doesn’t demonstrate a lot of faith in most of his players – and that lack of faith is reciprocated. Want Oden to play with abandon? Play him more than 16 minutes. Design a defense that doesn’t have him trying to move out to a wing that is coming in. Every big loses that battle.

Want better offense? Figure out how to run the stupid pick and roll with more ability than a high school JV squad. Pathetic.

Want better offense? Learn to play off the guy that is breaking down the dribble. The Blazers do not recognize mismatches early in the clock – they don’t seem to work to create mismatches – and they do not capitalize on mismatches. 3 guys collapse on Roy? Where is the cutter or the 3-point shooter filing space?

Frankly – these team looks confused and uncoordinated right now – and although we should have expected this – I still blame the coach for not making this team more dynamic.

McMillan wants to control how his team play – rather than shaping this team to play well. I have no doubt that they will “get it” at some point – but a good coach gets them there today, not tomorrow.

Rebounding and getting to the foul line. Because if we are not so much of a jump shot team, we’d get more fouls called on the other team. If we got a few more offensive rebounds, the chances of getting foul calls in our favor go up. But again, if the Blazers are going to lose the free throw attempt battle the whole season, they are not going to be above .500. In fact I am predicting right now, this season is going to be a long one. No 50 wins this season. It might be early to predict that, but there it is . I am predicting it.
42 wins tops.
Nate apparently has no idea who to play and when, and the team looks lost on offense. When they run the offense right, its boring and highly predictable. I’d take forcing an opposing team into jump shots all night a successful defensive night. The Blazer offense just gifts that to their opponents every game. Sad.

They were trying to attack the basket, but Josh Smith in particular wasn’t having it. That guy is a bad man. Outlaw passed up an open 3 at the shot clock buzzer because he was trying to get a high percentage shot, but the personnel are simply not good at getting to the basket and taking contact. Miller allows the defense to collapse because of his poor shooting. For all the complaining about Oden not getting the ball, guess what? He got the ball plenty of times when he could actually stay on the floor, and for the most part his touches resulted in turnovers. Atlanta’s bigs were almost always in position to challenge shots, which they did, and they out-rebounded the Blazers, especially when it counted.

Rotation-wise, the decision to go small as long as they did was mind-boggling. They had no inside game and were settling for bad jump shots. I don’t understand why they didn’t leave a good defensive big in from the 6 minute mark until both of them fouled out. There wasn’t much to lose at that point. Martell coming out didn’t help the cause either.

As it stands, this is not an elite team or even a good team for that matter. They’ll have to scratch and claw their way up to mediocre. I really, really hate to see Bill Simmons being right so far. That guy is an arrogant, overbearing putz.

with the conclusion that the defense lost the game. It was poor offensive execution which led to exploitation of the Blazer defense often putting Oden at risk (Pryz too).

Look. Put Outlaw, or Rudy, or Blake in the corner for a three and then take a poor shot is like a pitcher in baseball throwing the pitch on the inner half of the plate when you are trying to get the right hander to fly out to right field—your crossing up your outfield. In the same way when you install a three point shooter in the corner and you have to loft an off balance mid-range shot that misses you’ve just crossed up your offensive scheme and that leaves you vulnerable on defense.

Hence the offense lost last night game.

You are telling me the Blazers lost because a small quick guard had a great game? THIS IS THE FIRST TIME THIS HAS HAPPENED!!!

for our Bigs (Greg)? Is there one? Can somebody please send the Blazers’ coaching staff some tapes of Andrew Bynum’s first few games. The difference between how these two play makes me want to vomit all over whoever is “teaching” Greg how to play basketball at the professional level.

Only one had a game plan. The other was so predictable it was laughable. BTW, please quit switching on pick and rolls, forcing Oden/Prz to cover shooting guards.

I hate that 3 guard rotation of Miller, Blake, Roy—that needs to stop. And stop changing the 4th quarter rotation so much. Go with one rotation for a few games and if that doesn’t work, go with another. Really, the talents of all these players aren’t being utilized correctly. And stop switching on pick and rolls!!! So much for defense….

“this Miller signing is turning this team upside down”

I think there is some truth to that. The Blazers could have tried to just continue on from last year and they would probably be winning games right now.

However, status quo would lead to a similar season as last year. Good regular season and fizzle out in the first round of the playoffs.

Nothing ventured nothing gained. Unfortunately, what risk taking means is that there is a chance for gain and also a chance for loss.

Right now the changes the team has attempted to make have simply unraveled their previous success without getting them on a new path to success.

I would just say, give Nate & company some slack to get the team on track. If they are playing 20-30 games into the season like they are now, then I will agree with those who will be calling for heads to roll.

Nate quoted above:

We’ve been a team that attacks the basket.

a) we’ve been losing
b) aside from last night, officiating’s been disgusting (both ways)
c) most of the team plays without passion and poorly
d) it’s getting boring to watch 15 point quarters

That said, I’m not going anywhere, and I’ll watch every single game this year. It’s just not that fun right now.

It will be.

If the Blazers can figure out how to break through this funk, they’ll be stronger on the other side.

I don’t know what took me so long but I just now realized that Nate hates the Blazers. He’s still a Sonic at heart and he’s doing is darndest (Word?) to destroy us. Please Paul Allen fire him. I can’t watch this all year.

get the Fire Nate camp. Its not like the Blazers are super talented. They have one all-star, a very soft pf who is inconsistent and a bunch of average players who would be role players on other teams. The fact that the team won 54 last year is a testament to Nates coaching.

at Nate for bringing in Miller thinking it would work and not giving Bayless a chance. What happend to units this year? Now Miller is on the floor with Roy and Blake LOL I dont like the presence of Miller on the floor with this team period. Trade him and make a decision on JB.

Consider that if we average just 6-4 in each 10 game span, we’ll have 48 wins with 2 games remaining at the end of the season. We want more of course. But the Blazers will not have a problem reaching at least 12-8 for their first 20 games and should move up nicely from there. Give them those first 20 to work out the kinks. Translation: Way too soon to panic, especially with my man Oden showing flashes of greatness. It’s going to come together and Greg’s going to be the key — mark my words.

Good coaches also recognize matchups and prepare their players to adapt to them.

Frankly, I don’t see this from McMillan and his staff.

A bad coach wants to run, but can’t get runners to run. A bad coach wants his team to pass the ball and run the pick and roll, but can’t get his guys to run the pick and roll. A bad coach hedges fouls but designs a defense that maximizes fouls on the guys he hedges fouls for. A bad coach hedges fouls and doesn’t use them.

A bad coach plays rotations that he doesn’t practice together. A bad coach thinks that playing harder is the solution to every problem – and takes no responsibility for a bad game plan.

McMillan is not a good coach.

I wondered before the season why Nate made the point that Rudy should control the ball and create for his team mates more. Roy average’s five assists a game, Blake and Miller are both distributors and every touch Rudy gets to run a play take away from one of those three. Why not lith with what Rudy gives you in assists rather then trying to force more out of it? His biggest asset is coming around the screens for catch and shoots. He’s deadly at it. No one on the team does it like he can. His passing success has come off freelances when he has to go second option. Roy has not shown he can play off the ball and be confortable, Miller should shoot from the outside rarely. Nate has asked Rudy to change his game a bit, become more of a point guard, and I don’t get it. We just signed a free agent point guard and Rudy at any given time is our biggest outside threat on the team…..

First to Ben – your point might be valid but I suspect your illustration of lineup changes includes substituting offense for defense, and losing Greg to his 5th foul. If so, that seems to overstate the issue. That he stemmed the tide to equal is actually a plus compared to the previous 31 minutes.

As to those shouting for a center in the game at the end:

Last year we routinely played with LMA and Travis and no center in crunch time. It is an established routine that Nate is continuing depending on the matchups. Overall our centers played 42.5 minutes per game (adjusting for the games with only one center available). This year our centers are playing an average 40.1 minutes per game and, with only 5 games, that 2.4 minutes are not likely significant, Our centers last night committed 4 of our 8 turnovers making them a potential liability. Does anyone doubt that with Oden back in the game the plan would be to dunk on him, likely getting both basket and foul and creating yet another change in lineup?

As for firing Nate or blaming anyone this early in the season:

Last year we had 12 players suited up who understood and bought into the system. This year Andre has been added and has not yet been assimilated. Last year we were 6-5 after 11 games and with 2 losses in a row I suspect there were similar calls to fire Nate. It turned out better than nearly any optimist had predicted. Nate does not coach like some other coaches. So? differentiating between being a development coach and a playoff coach has no historical basis as far as I know. He is a coach. He was a better coach than every other coach last year in terms of his production against expected development time lines. There is certainly not one single coach not coaching now who is available to replace Nate at this time. The reason a coach is fired is because he loses his team. It happens to most coaches eventually when the players tune him out and a change is needed. There is no evidence that this has occurred here. The one person best able to discern that moment is Kevin Pritchard., He attends practices. He talks with players. He talks with coaches. He will know when a change is needed. Is Nate ready for induction into the HOF? (Actually he would be compared to some coaches who are in there) but the answer is no. But his trajectory is indicating that he will be if continued. He has lost to three teams who are combined 12-3 with the losses coming from LAL, LAL and Portland. This is a game more art than science. Armchair analysis is fun but worth what is paid for it. That is my take.

Finally a word to the newer members who are taking about quitting the site and the team:

I see being a fan of a team as a lifelong commitment. It is learning the nuances of the game and the team and its philosophy in order to better appreciate and enjoy it. There are always ups and downs and every year every team but one is disappointed its last game. That is part of the commitment. We hope for the best but realistically know that the odds of even the best team are less than 50% to win it all.

Did we waste our time and emotions all those years with Clyde and Terry and Jerome not winning the championship even once? If you say yes, perhaps you are here for the wrong reason. We soar with the wins and we are crushed by the losses but, just like the athletes themselves, we get up the next morning and start again because there is another game, another year. This is what being a fan is for me. I suggest you not take to heart the many negative things said here in the heat if emotions. Many of the wiser and more knowledgabe posters have been mostly missing from these posts for a reason. This is not all of what Blazersedge.com is to me. There are many thoughtful, reasoned, supported by data contributions throughout the site. This one (comments) is not one of our finer moments.