Miller Roy Rudy line up creates numerous offensive mismatches tha can be exploited but it would be best used in short sputs such as the end of halves.

I realize this wasn’t the point of the exercise, but it would be interesting to look at the same line breakdowns for defense over that time period. It doesn’t do any good to score if we’re not getting stops at the other end when we’re behind.

some thoughts:

Miller initiated 12 plays, Roy initiated 6 times, Blake initiated 3 times and Webster initiated the final 2 possessions. Note: many of the plays that Miller initiated involved simply turning the ball over to Roy early in the possession on the wing.

IMHO, these should be re-categorized as Roy initiated.

The Blazers ran 7 pick and rolls with Brandon Roy as the ballhandler. That’s a Roy pick and roll on nearly 1 in 3 possessions

More accurately, the Blazers ran 7 picks with Roy as the ballhandler. Roy stopped running the pick and roll about halfway through last season, and has since become much more predictable when receiving picks. Teams have learned they don’t have to respect the threat of passing to the roller, so they can just load up on him, which is why this play has become less effective. As you pointed out, the picker deserves some of the blame for not making himself a better target, but maybe there is some chicken and egg going on there too. Roy rarely passes to the roller, so maybe the roller stopped looking for it… ?

McMillan had been saving Oden for the stretch when he had four fouls. Once inserted into the game, though, Oden lasted just 3 possessions before picking up his 5th. By the time McMillan got Oden back in the game for the final minutes,

Once he put him in with 4 fouls, he should have just let him play when he picked up number 5. At that point I think there was less than 6 minutes left in the game – why not keep him on the court? What are you going to save him for at that point? And to make matters worse, very late in the game when we were down 4 coming out of a timeout and needed a bucket, we didn’t put him in to get a chance at the offensive board. Since we were running the 1-4 isolation and not a play involving either (let alone both), Travis and LaMarcus, why wouldn’t you put such a dominate offensive rebounder in the game?

~90 percent of plays during this stretch occurred outside-in

Not surprising, this has always been what we do down the stretch.

On your adjustments:
-Miller/Roy/Rudy – duh! that’s what most of us have been saying
-Miller/Blake flip-flop – seems obvious
-Absolutely agree. We need to get LMA some playcalls down the stretch
-Great point. Rudy might also be an acceptable option as the entry passer
-Oden should not ever be setting this pick at the high 3point line. even if he rolls and is an available target, it’s too far from teh bucket. if he’s picking, it’ needs to be more around the elbow. Additonally, he is now woefully out of position to get an offensive rebound – something he excels at. Use LMA for the pick or use Oden much closer to the bucket.

The Miller/Roy/Fernandez/Outlaw/Aldridge lineup gave up something like 16 straight points in the paint. I seriously thought I was watching a Harlem Globetrotters game, and Portland was that Washington team they drag around the country to humiliate.

Your charting series is quickly becoming my favorite feature on BE.

I wonder what the defensive charting looked like? Intuitively, I agree with Sean M’s assessment that the small ball lineup got killed defensively.

Watching these early-season games has been pretty painful…I appreciate that you’re willing to watch them again and do some actual analysis. Sure beats the “It must be Miller’s fault, cuz we were freaking AWESOME last year!” drumbeat.

Thanks again.

Although this might anger many who desire that the Blazers push the tempo, the results when the pace picked up weren’t great. Miller had two shots blocked in transition that went back the other way before the Blazers defense could recover.

I won’t speak for others, but I am looking for tempo to be pushed early in the game not late. I f opportunities present themselves late – great – but I understand that pace is likely to slow in the fourth quarter – especially in a close game.

Would like to see Roy’s final position as “fighting for the rebound” whenever possible.

Our half court offense sucks, and we are a deep team so why not push tempo. But that means we have to force more turnovers and rebound consistantly too. The increase in our turn overs brought on by a higher tempo game shouldn’t worry anyone. It’s not about the number of TO’s you have, its about the percentage of possessions you turn the ball over on. If you get 120 possessions and turn it over 20 times, you still have ten more chances to score then if you have 100 possessions and turn it over 10 times.
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A higher tempo should result in more foul calls in our favor as well perhaps partially correcting a big problem in our offense which is we don’t get to the free throw line enough. It would create more layups and make us less of a jump shooting team and would get more players involved. Some real pressure on the perimeter might lessen the fouls that our big men are getting. It certainly can not hurt.

who will be finishing games a month from now.

I can’t see a lineup of Rudy, Roy and Miller working because of obvious issues on D and rebounding. Since Roy starts all the plays anyways and basically plays point, I would think there’s little use for Miller. I think there has to be a strong solid SF on the floor for D and rebounding. That’s means Webster for now and Batum when he comes back.

Unless we start getting some easier baskets, none of this will matter anyways. There’s no way a jump shooting team that’s currently sitting dead last in fast break points will make a splash in the playoffs.. It’s just too hard to score enough to win night after night against half court NBA defense. Not to mention we’re average on D.

Thankfully we’ve got boat loads of talent and the guys are young.

On that same note, though, it’s clear Roy is still familiarizing himself with the dynamics of the pick and roll offense. As smart as he is with the dribble, Roy found himself in some tight situations down the stretch, both because of his own doing and because of some excellent team defense by Atlanta. At various points, Roy: ignored screens all together, didn’t rub his defender close enough to the pick-setter, and dribbled hard off the screen into a no-man’s-land near the baseline. In live play, he was relying on his excellent instincts. On tape, he will probably be shaking his head at some of those decisions, as Atlanta seemed to have schemed him quite well, with post defenders offering help quickly and without fouling.

I would propose that part of what we are seeing now are growing pains for a team trying to evolve their game. I know that the B-Roy and others have expressed a certain amount of surprise that they aren’t just coming back to be the team they were last year, that they are having to do it all over again.

Well hey guess what? They are not the team they were last year, and I’m not referring to the lineup changes. I’m talking about offensive and defensive strategies. As we all know, this team is making a much larger effort on the defensive end this season. How many times on this site, and in the Oregonian, have I read players and coaches talking about “not thinking” while the player is on the floor? Dosen’t it make a certain amount of sense that a renewed defensive commitment is going to involve a bunch of games where players have to “think” about defense? If they’re putting mental energy and deliberation into the defensive end, could that cost them rythym on the offensive end? I think it can.

Furthermore, I think Ben’s paragraph above illustrates that Blazer fans are not unique in our concern about how much we rely on Brandon in isolation. Did B-Roy spontaneously decide to do a bunch of PnRs that he normally doesn’t rely on? No, that’s a coaching decision. So am I saying that in a close 4th quarter game with a W on the line, that Coach Nate would stick to the playbook and not fall back on our already established strengths? Sounds like classic McMillan to me. Make a plan, stick to the plan.

I think there is a paralell here. Those of you who follow golf may remember a period in Tiger Wood’s career where, basically, he sucked. Lasted for a while too. That was driven by a conscious effort on his part to rebuild his golf swing from scratch, because he felt he had hit a ceiling with his initial form. Eventually he worked through it and went back to crushing his opponents.

So if my hypothesis is correct, and some of our losses stem from an ambitious effort to deepen and broaden our strategy on the floor, then I fully expect that we will get over this hump. The team will develop “chemistry” with defensive rotations, B-Roy PnRs, etc. and we will take it to a new level.

There were a couple of plays in First Half that were rather instructive.
LMA is running out sees Blake is dribbling up ball and slows to a a half-hearted jog.
Little later LMA is running out and sees Miller has ball and keeps running. Miller throws laser that LMA catches and scores on.

1. We are messing with a lot of great new options; determining what works and what doesn’t. The results are not pretty just yet. (the optimist)
2. We are trying to correct weaknesses identified last season unsuccessfully. (the pessimist)

I favor the 2nd thought. We STILL have the same exact problems as last season:

1. terrible perimeter defense,
2. prefer the jump shot,
3. can’t get the ball into the paint
4. don’t run well.

So I am more despondent than others because I see this as absolute evidence of failing to improve on obvious problems. Others are reading it as ’lots of new adjustments that will take time".

If you think about it, both viewpoints suggest responsibilities that fall directly on the shoulders of the coach. If Nate does not recognize how badly we are failing at these 4 areas, all is lost. If he recognizes this and CAN’T correct their game play it is at least partially his problem.

I’ve played. I’ve coached a little. If you see your teams weaknesses and don’t or cannot change them…you just aren’t going to win. It’s that simple.

I have no faith in keeping our young players just for “development”. I’d look to trade Bayless, Blake and Outlaw for a speedy PG with GOOD defense and a banging 4 like Maurice Lucas to be LMA’s alter ego.

I would also kick Batum’s butt for playing all summer with a known shoulder surgery injury he obviously intended to have fixed during the NBA season…or wasn’t smart enough to know what was going to happen. He’d never forget his mistake when I was done with him…

The Miller/Rudy/Roy/Outlaw/Aldridge lineup should almost never be used at the end of games. It negates any chance we have to get a defensive stop against 90% of the teams in the NBA, and eliminates any offense other than jumpshots, or haphazard drives into bigger defenders. It also eliminates much hope of getting a rebound.

Like I said, terrible analysis. The line up that was most successful in the game, was the starting lineup in the first quarter, where we jumped out to a sizable lead. That lineup should finish the game as well. The defense is about the best we have, and the offense is not a thing of beauty, but it works. The fourth quarter lineups Nate is using are all weak.