Subscribe Feed (RSS)Forget about the Portland Trail Blazers’ horrid performance at the foul line Saturday night. Stuff happens. But what you need to do is take a look at one more horrific defensive effort, something that is becoming a trademark of the team’s season.
The pick and roll. Simplest play in basketball. Easiest to stop for most teams, too. Certainly the Charlotte Bobcats had no trouble handling Portland’s pick and roll. None. But, wow — the Blazers are humiliating themselves as a professional basketball team by the way they’re defending the pick and roll.
You can pick out moments of that game that make you shake your head in amazement. Switching on all those picks leaves Portland with impossible matchups. How about Greg Oden’s sixth foul? What on earth is he doing out on the wing trying to defend Gerald Wallace, a small forward, one on one? How about one of the final plays in overtime when Blazer broadcaster Mike Rice — you can tell as an old coach he’s just biting his tongue about the whole situation — says confidently, just as Charlotte is setting yet another high pick and roll: “Well, (the Blazers) won’t switch it this time, not in this situation.”
But sure enough, there the Blazers go, switching on another pick and roll, leaving LaMarcus Aldridge to futilely trail a point guard, Raymond Felton, down the lane. Felton missed the shot but because Aldridge was chasing him, the ‘Cats controlled the offensive rebound.
Maybe, for some readers, this is too complicated. See, when a guard has the ball and a bigger player sets a pick for him, the defender needs to “show” on the pick just long enough for the guard’s defender to get back and cover the guard. If you simply switch defensive assignments it leaves the big man defending the guard and the guard defending the other big man. Either one is not workable. So you usually don’t switch the pick and roll, unless the players defending it are approximately the same size.
In the overtime, Charlotte scored on two consecutive dunks (did you see Rudy Fernandez and Joel Przybilla having some heated conversation after the second one?), a wide-open three-pointer and a layup down the stretch, while Portland had nothing but Brandon Roy or Travis Outlaw trying to beat their defenders off the dribble — or pitching it out to Rudy Fernandez for a three-pointer.
I know you’re tired of reading this (hell, I’m certainly tired of writing it) but you just can’t play defense this way and have a reasonable chance to win against good teams. With a better defensive scheme — and the same players it has right now – this team would already have three or four extra wins this season. I don’t care what your lineup is or who you trade for or what your offensive philosophy is. Doesn’t matter.
You can’t win big in the NBA unless you play better defense than this. And it requires a system, an understanding, of how situations are handled, as a team. This isn’t a breakdown of individual players, it’s a team-wide problem. And until it gets solved, this team is just spinning its wheels.
Tags: Brandon Roy, Charlotte Bobcats, Dwight Jaynes, Emeka Okafor, Portland Trail Blazers, Raymond Felton, Rudy Fernandez, Travis Outlaw
Dwight,this has to be one of the worst losses of the entire year.
They just flat out stunk,and worst of all,my god Greg Oden
has looked terrible again.The things I see with him look high school caliber player. Stupid,stupid fouls.
The entire team has done a big poop in my mouth tonight.
I feel as bad as this sounds.
Poor defense indeed and they ALL looked a step slow out there tonight
I never saw so many layups by the oppossing team in quite sometime. It looked like we were content in trading buckets, and that is just not good enough…
However, had they made there free throws they would have actually won…
One bright spot…Bayless continues to shine
Yes it was horrible to watch…….again. I hate to say it but Roy is wearing down. Nate is riding him too much, his body is taking a pounding.
The pick and roll defense is mind boggling as many of us have posted. What is becoming even more perplexing is that this team has no identity. It is a luxury to be versitile enough to be able to be flexible with line ups but what are we defined as?
The 1 0n 1 iso’s and the 1-4 Broy prevent offense isn’t cutting it anymore either.
The most frustrating part and I guess the hardest thing to keep in perspective is that this team is doing good, better than last year, but frustrating as hell because we all can see what this team could be. Gerald Wallace would be a nice fit at the 3 for us.
I agree Bayless is getting better Ozzy. Sergio would be a better fit in NY or Golden State where he can just go with it and not worry about defense. Not that I dont like him he just is not the right fit here.
I still think 45-48 wins is where we fall.
Dwight, you are spot on. I know this subject is confusing for many fans out there, who will call out fairweather fans or trying to be a basketball expert.
This is basketball 101. If you even played organized basketball as a young child (under 10), this is something that you learn. It’s absolutely unacceptable.
Without saying it, Dwight is pointing to the primary flaw with our team. NATE MCMILLIAN. How can a coach allow this? As Nate has said personally, which was quoted by Dwight the other day. This IS their defensive game plan. They switch.
Humorous and angry to me was the Fernandez and Pryzbilla exchange. To be honest, Pryzbilla was right to get at Fernandez for NOT following McMillian’s game plan on the defense. HOWEVER, Rudy played with natural basketball smarts as he was trying to fight through the picks. We shouldn’t have Rudy switching onto Wallace for a basket + 1. Just terrible.
The problem is McMillian. He doesn’t have a proper (or even basic) defensive strategy. He cannot find how to exploit another teams defense. He is a control freak not allowing free-run offense. He wants a half-court game for a running team.
Also, for all you Oden hater – don’t you think 30+ games into the season…. We are seeing Oden do things he didn’t do in College (negative) .. We don’t see improvement…. Rudy is still good, but looks like he is playing against his normal judgement…. Same with Sergio (where is the running Sergio from 3 years ago).
Nate is not only doing damage, causing losses … He is damaging the player goods.
Get Nate out of here now!
This is an excellent article on what I am seeing,but don’t have the expertise to write it.
Boy,many hours later I still have a bad feeling about this game.
I think it just may be an omen of something that has to happen
to save this year.
Once again Dwight, you are the only person with a public blog that’s read by many with the Balls to call out this catastrophe of a defensive scheme. I’ve been saying it all year, Nate McMillan is not a smart coach. He might be a good assistant coach, but as a head coach he sucks. His offense is repetitive (either iso Brandon or Travis), switching on everything is a joke, and other than the Nets game I’ve never seen much emotion out of him.
Once again, until this team gets rid of Nate, we will not win anything. He has never been a winner, neither in his playing career or his coaching career, and we won’t make him one; he’ll only make us losers like him.
It’s time to get rid of McMillan and bring a coach in who has a better defensive plan than to play lazy-ass-switch-every-pick-ball. Paul Allen if you’re reading this, go get us Avery Johnson. At least his teams defended.
I seriously can’t take it anymore. It’s the same mistake game after game after game!!!!! STOP SWITCHING ON THE PICK AND ROLL!!!!!!!!!!!! I threw a glass against the wall and broke it when I saw oden out there getting his sixth foul guarding wallace!!!!! Seriously what the hell is the problem here????? Will someone please hold our coach responsible and ask the tough questions? Because I know dam well Jason Quick would never dare ask Nate a tough question. They are buddies and it is sickening!! Seriously someone in the Portland media market needs to grow a pair and freaking address this problem.
Great post Dwight. Watching this game was like getting kerosene sprayed in my eyes – so dang painful! Completely porous defense and static offense. At least Aldridge had his stroke going to keep us in it.
I haven’t heard whether the switching is intentional or not by Nate but I sure would like to know. What I don’t understand is if Nate was the defensive guru for the US olympic team why can’t he create a strategy that works for his own team? Are the players simply missing their assignments more often than not? Do we have too many inexperienced players playing? Are their language/communication problems? Bayless seems to understand the need to get through the pick so lets hope he also starts seeing cutters to the hoop when he drives or we’ll be seeing him swatted repeatedly.
Greg: Keep your arms up, not out. And everyone take 100 FTs a day for the next month.
Dwight, I started noticing this ridiculous scenario with the repeated mismatches on pick-and-rolls during the Boston game. The Blazers won that one despite the problem
My question: how long has this been going on? A) All season, and teams just started to notice it and exploit it, therefore bringing it to my attention? B) Just recently, such as the Boston game, or when? Or C) All season and I just noticed it vs. Boston and you just started harping on it?
I have wondered all along if, thanks to Pritchard, this team would be just as good (or better) with Terry Porter coaching it. I admit to bias as I am a big Porter fan and would love seeing Porter get the credit McMillan is getting.
Just late night ponderings….
1) Please not Avery Johnson
2) On the play where Rudy and Przybilla got into it, wasn’t it Okafor thay dunked? If so, the idea that Rudy should switch to cover him 2 feet from the rim is rather laughable, in keeping with the theme of this discussion.
It was Rudy’s rotation to cover Joel’s man when joel went to help.
Avery grinds on players, so he might do well for a year or so but the Dallas players were in revolt at the end.
The points are well made in the above posts. Not sold on the fire nate thing but remember most of these guys are learning at the pro level instead of a full 4 years at college.
Charlotte scored 52 points in the paint.
Its ok… be patient, Greg will get better………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
TROLL ALERT! DON’T FEED THE TROLL!!!!!
Hmm… no comments from Kil…
Dwight, thank you for your thoughtful reflections on a nasty game. What about Avery?? Go Blazers!
I think it goes without saying that there’s a coaching problem that needs to be addressed, but who is available that would be an improvement?
it kind of makes it hard for issues to be raised when the main beat writer for the team is the coach’s BFF.
and it isn’t just with nate…we all remember that mo cheeks was way in over his head trying to coach on a lot of nights, but his aptitude was never questioned either.
remember, nate played witht he sonics, who had big guards, nate and payton, and athletic forwards, kemp, schrempf, and when they were good they were famous for switching everything. remember how that worked in their 1-8 matchup with mutumbo and the nuggets. from best record to first out.
Tonight vs Bucks:
1st Quarter
—————-
16 Total High Picks
14 Switches
1 Over/Under Cover
1 Trap
2nd Quarter
—————–
8 Total High Picks
7 Switches
1 Over/Under Cover
3rd Quarter
—————–
9 Total High Picks
7 Switches
2 Over/Under Cover
4th Quarter
——————
14 Total High Picks
10 Switches
4 Over/Under Covers
Totals
—————-
47 Total High Picks
38 Switches
8 Over/Under Covers
1 Trap
***Sounds like this IS Nate’s game plane.