I got a chance to watch most of the game yesterday as the U.S. basketball team held off Brazil 70-68 at the FIBA world championships.

And I have to say I was shocked at the lack of organization and the overall way our team played. Can’t players learn a simple motion offense? Why is it that even at this level, with all the talent out there, we can’t see a free-flowing offense where all the players touch the ball, with screens being set and the ball and bodies being moved?

But no, it was like they’ve made Nate McMillan the team’s offensive coordinator. There was all kinds of standing around and watching someone play one-on-one.

And please, spare me the talk about the team not being together for more than a few weeks — and how long all the other teams have been playing together. Really, high school teams install offensive systems in a couple of weeks and play them competently — certainly some of the best players in the world ought to be able to do it.

Besides, most of these players have used some sort of flex or passing game offense someplace during their career, in high school or college, and know what they’re supposed to do. Pass and move — it’s not brain surgery.

It’s just seems to me that somehow players have triumphed over coaches in the NBA — it’s like the coaches have given up — and the result is they just don’t want to work hard on offense and don’t want to give of themselves for the benefit of others. Everyone wants the ball in his hands and when he doesn’t have it, he stands and watches.

Ugh.

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More than you think.

First of all, I think it’s amusing that a defensive specialist, Bob Ociepka, is being added to the staff. Trust me, he’s necessary, even though Nate McMillan is supposed to also be a defensive specialist. The Blazers need huge defensive improvement if they want to do anything in the post-season. I just hope Ociepka can make an impact.

Buck Williams? He should do just fine, even though he’s not had any experience as a coach. He’s also not anyone who ever wowed anybody with his low-post offensive skills. But his work ethic and intensity are top notch and I believe it will rub off on his players.

Bernie Bickerstaff should make a good advisor to McMillan in team matters and I’m not really sure what his duties will be. Certainly, he’s not known as a great offensive mind.

And that’s the real disappointment in these moves — that the Blazers have not added anyone known as an offensive innovator. And all indications are that the Trail Blazers are going to continue exactly as they’ve been on offense — not setting many screens, not moving the ball or moving bodies well enough to get easy baskets. Not running. Ugh.

The second unit, always important to the way McMillan plays, is shaping up as nothing but defense. It will be extremely shy of firepower but will be loaded with stoppers. It will probably need to slow the game’s tempo to a crawl.

McMillan probably just wants to keep playing like he’s always played — relying on the three-point shot to keep his team’s offensive efficiency high. Brandon Roy will continue to have the ball in his hands all the time and the other players will wait around on the perimeter, spotting up for their chance to make an open three created by a double-team on Roy.

Don’t get me started again about this. It’s a strategy that is guaranteed to wear Roy down, to not work in the playoffs and to lead to low scores. Folks, this team is trending — because of acquisitions — toward being LESS powerful on offense and not more. The biggest acquisition of the off-season has been Wesley Matthews — a defensive player. The most likely player to depart? Rudy Fernandez? And Martell Webster is already gone. Two of the team’s best outside shooters!

Where does that lead this thing? There’s NO QUESTION in my mind that a deal must be made for a point guard who can make shots from distance. I don’t know if that’s Mo Williams — considered the most likely choice — or Jason Terry or whomever — but the only way this offensive system is going to work is for another Steve Blake to be found. Man, I can’t believe I just wrote that. (I also believe that point guard is NOT Chris Paul. Getting Paul would require the Blazers to do a complete overhaul on offense. And I don’t see McMillan doing that.)

With Webster and probably Fernandez gone, how are they going to spread the floor well enough for Roy — or Greg Oden, if he’s healthy — to have room to operate? Miller would not have room to get to the basket.  This thing isn’t going to work unless there’s one more shooter on the floor. Man, right now, there’s not even another one on the roster.

I assume, as I have now for weeks, that Rudy, Jerryd Bayless and Miller would go in the deal. There’s really no point of keeping Miller if you acquire a big-minute point guard — and the team that trades a point guard always needs one in return. Joel Pryzbilla’s expiring contract could also be used in this trade.

If something like this isn’t done, you’re going to see a real offensive mess again. It’s just not going to work. And all the new coaches in the world aren’t going to be able to repair it.

I still have a hunch they’ve got the framework of a deal already done, just waiting for Rich Cho to push the button. If not, they better hope Cho can pull a rabbit out of a hat.

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Yeah, you can get all pumped up about the Trail Blazers summer team being 2-0 if you want. But so far, I have to admit I’m a little disappointed by what I’ve seen.

Dante Cunningham and Jeff Pendergraph? For a couple of guys who spent all of last season in the NBA, I don’t think they’ve been all that impressive. Both are rushing a little bit and not letting the game come to them.

Patty Mills has been OK, pretty good, actually. But while I think he’s going to be on an NBA roster next season, I’m not sure it will be Portland’s. I’m not convinced Nate McMillan likes him — or likes small guards.

Now keep in mind that you can’t get too carried away with summer league either way, but I’m so far very unimpressed with Luke Babbitt.

Man, that kid has a long way to go before he’s anywhere close to Martell Webster. In fact, he has a long way to go before he has a chance of even getting into an NBA game, unless Portland trades all its other small forwards away. And don’t even think about playing him at power forward. At least right now, that doesn’t look possible.

He just doesn’t look as if he’s going to be ready. He’s got a lot of work ahead of him before training camp if he wants to carve out a role.

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Jason Quick asked Trail Blazer coach Nate McMillan about his new assistant coaches — seeing as how he needs about four to fill his staff for the upcoming season. And for me, what we got was a rather interesting answer. He says he’s not going to hire any assistants until a general manager is in place — because “the general manager negotiates salary and contract details.”

Really? That could be the case, but I have to say that I haven’t heard that before in the NBA. Head coaches are usually given a budget and allowed to use it as they wish to hire the coaches they want. Trust me, it’s not as if any of these coaches has a chance to break the bank. This is not a high-priced item in an organization as big as this one.

In most cases, the head coach would get that staff in place as soon as possible — before the best candidates were taken by someone else.

But if it’s true that McMillan was told by his front office to dump a couple of his assistant coaches after last season, then it’s certainly no leap to think that same front office is going to tell him who to hire, right? And could it be that’s what he’s waiting for? If not who to hire, at least getting approval for who he’d like to hire.

And overall, that certainly indicates to me that McMillan may not have the power that he once had within the organization. Man, when you talk about this team heading into an interesting season — a crossroads season– this is just one more sign of it.

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It started out as an attempt to research the emergence of “developmental” coaches in the NBA. You know those specialists who are charged with working tirelessly, one-on-one with players on their skills. I’ve been around the NBA since the early 1980s and don’t remember exactly when those guys started to appear.

To make a long story short, I’ve been kicking this idea around for months and started asking about a guy in a backward baseball cap I saw working Sonics players out in Seattle years ago. They called him “Hat Guy” and you can read a profile of him here, written in the Seattle Times in 1995. Gordon actually started his career in the NBA helping Paul Westphal rehab from an injury in the early 1980s.

It was a little bit difficult to get his phone number but eventually I did. And I finally spoke with him Monday afternoon. Turns out that I’ve suddenly got a story I didn’t expect, that of “Hat Guy” — Steve Gordon — and what he’s up to these days. Well, guess what?

The man quietly joined the staff of the Portland Trail Blazers a few years ago. Very quietly. I’ve not found any mention of him in a press guide or any stories associated with the team.

But in a matter of minutes, after a few phone calls to people within the league, I heard all sorts of opinions on what Gordon does for the Portland Trail Blazers. And they are stories tinged with mystery and a lot of speculation.

This was after Gordon, without any prompting from me, admitted that he works for the Blazers now.

“I’ve been with them for four and a half years,” Gordon told me. “I’m a consultant.”

I asked him what he consults about and he was a little vague but mentioned “development, scouting …”

A couple of NBA sources, though, have told me that Gordon — who used to help a lot of Microsoft bigwigs with their conditioning — has the ear of Paul Allen and Bert Kolde. And that he’s not shy about giving them advice. Gordon goes way back with Portland coach Nate McMillan, who worked with “Hat Guy” back in McMillan’s playing days with the Sonics. This from that 1995 story:

“He’s the kind of basketball junkie you meet in the park who knows everybody and everything about the game,” McMillan says. “He’s a guy who should be in a higher position, with some team, but isn’t.”

Now, it seems possible that Gordon IS in a higher position. Reached Monday afternoon, McMillan referred questions about Gordon higher up the corporate ladder.

“Well, I would like for Kevin (Pritchard) to address that,” McMillan said. “(Gordon)’s been doing some scouting over the years. That’s basically it.”

I mentioned to McMillan that Gordon told me he was a consultant for the team and the coach said, “With so much going on right now, I think we should limit our comments to what Kevin says.”

Pritchard said Gordon has input “at all levels” of the Blazer organization. “I’ve known him probably since 1990,” Pritchard said. “He knows Paul, Bert, Nate and me and we all talk to him.

“At his core, he’s a workout guy. He loves to work guys out. He helps us with that and around the draft with scouting and working guys out. He’s one of those guys who loves being in the gym.

However, Gordon’s role appears, at least according to NBA insiders, to be significant.

“He’s got a lot of input,” one league source told me. “Maybe more input than some of the people in Portland who are pretty well known.’”

Another source told me, “The guys in Seattle listen to him. But nobody knows quite how much.” Which was similar to another NBA person, who told me, “I hear that’s who they listen to up there. He’s their guy.”

Henry Abbott, who created ESPN’s “True Hoop” blog, is considered an expert on the league and a man who has followed the Trail Blazers since his childhood in Portland. He has spent a lot of time researching the inner workings of the team.

Here is what Abbott said Monday:

“When Tom Penn was first fired, it was hard to understand why. The more I dug in, the more I started hearing stories about an unfolding struggle for power over basketball decisions between the basketball operations staff in Portland and those closest to Paul Allen in Seattle. Hat Man came up as a part of that — one of several different lines the Vulcans cast from Seattle to Portland in an attempt to keep grips on basketball decisions. I’m not one of those who thinks the only good owners are the ones who do nothing but sign checks, but Hat Man is the latest of many examples that Paul Allen is a guy who likes to have a pretty serious degree of control, even though he’s seldom physically present. Who knows, maybe we’d all be like that if we spent all that money running a team. But it certainly is getting tougher and tougher to make the case that Allen is a delegator who trusts and empowers his guys.”

A lot of speculation has been made about who it is in Seattle prompting Allen’s Trail Blazer moves. “Vulcans” is the name they’re usually given — mysterious, faceless people named for Allen’s umbrella company. Usually, they have been perceived as buttoned-down, corporate types completely out of their element. But it never made a whole lot of sense that Allen, who does know basketball, would be listening to people like that. But a guy like “Hat Guy,” well …

When I tried to probe Gordon for more information about his role with the Trail Blazers he became anxious to end the call. Look, I’m not saying the guy is running the team or anything. Don’t overstate this. But at the same time, with all the scrutiny the front office gets in this town, it’s amazing there’s someone else involved, heretofore unknown, who is doing this stuff behind the scenes, free of criticism.

Not sure why Gordon bailed so quickly on the conversation if has just another mundane job with the team. And why has he not been listed on the roster of team employees?

But maybe I’m wrong about his haste to cut the conversation short. Perhaps that was just some sort of Vulcan mind-bend.

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Kenny Vance over at 95.5 The Game was the first to report this, like 10 days ago — and even predicted that Bernie Bickerstaff would be hired as the new lead assistant coach.

All I can say is, you’re going to shake up your staff and Bernie Bickerstaff is the answer? Well, maybe. I guess. I was looking for an innovator — someone with a new approach. Someone a little younger? Of course, I guess Bernie has the No. 1 quality for anyone getting hired around here — he spent some time in Seattle.

As far as his son, J.B., getting hired here, I’m not so sure about that. He’s still under contract in Minnesota. Plus, he’s so far been just a developmental coach and in Bill Bayno and Caleb Canales Portland already has two of those.

Let me say, too, that if the Blazers are losing Joe Prunty they’re losing a very promising young coach. I really don’t understand that.

I’m also not sure where this is coming from. It doesn’t sound like a Nate McMillan thing to jettison assistant coaches in bunches. You have to wonder if this isn’t coming from up north. Certainly Kevin Pritchard doesn’t seem to be in any position to force such changes on the head coach.

Usually, in any sport, when you see the head coach making wholesale changes on his staff it means the head guy is under some serious pressure. And it often means management is looking for not just coaching changes — but changes in the team’s style of play.

Which would be nice.

One thing is certain — next season is looking more and more like a very critical year for this franchise. And its head coach.

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Thanks to John Hollinger at ESPN (insider) for pointing out that isolation offenses aren’t as effective in the playoffs, where preparation is much easier than it is in the regular season:

I wrote an article recently about playoff myths — things people think change in the playoffs, but in fact don’t.

However, there’s another piece to that puzzle. Perhaps there are things people don’t think change in the playoffs, but in fact do.

I may have accidentally stumbled upon one in observing my two “home” teams, Atlanta and Portland, compete in the playoffs over the past two seasons. Watching the Hawks in particular, nearly every commentator has been shocked by how little ball movement their offense generates and how many times they end up isolating Joe Johnson while everybody else stands around and watches.

This complaint might sound familiar to folks in the Northwest, because it’s not altogether different from what the Blazers do with Brandon Roy. Both teams’ fan bases constantly complain about the lack of originality and shameless predictably inherent in such an attack.

And:

In other words, theirs is a volume strategy. The Hawks and Blazers might not take better shots than other teams, but they take a lot more of them. Over time, that gives them enough of an advantage to make them potent offensive squads overall.

So what’s the problem?

Apparently, there isn’t one … until Game 83. Remember when I was talking about things that change in the playoffs? One change is that these iso-heavy offenses apparently have a lot more trouble when opponents have time to game plan against them in a playoff series.

Take a look at the playoff results from these teams the past two seasons, and the conclusion is hard to ignore. If this happened in any one playoff series, we might be able to dismiss it as a short-term fluke. But the fact that it’s happened six times in six series tells us that maybe something about isolation-heavy offenses doesn’t function well in an environment in which opponents have several days to scout, game-plan and match up for this specific tactic.

I guess we all love it when we find others who agree with us. I think I take special delight when it’s someone I particularly respect. Hollinger — along with Henry Abbott and his True Hoop — are two guys, by themselves, worth the few cents a year that ESPN Insider costs. They know what they’re talking about.

And man, how long have we all been saying this about Nate McMillan’s “Here Brandon, take the ball one-on-three and score” offense?

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Well, we’ve got months now to evaluate this season and to look ahead to next year. So we’ll save an in-depth analysis for all the dog days to come. At the same time, a few observations on Thursday night’s season-ender:

– Man, why did Jerryd Bayless keep entering that game? I know Andre Miller didn’t play well but he played just 18:26 compared to Bayless’s 29:10. One veteran media guy who has seen more NBA games than I have over the years turned to me at halftime and said, “That guy (Bayless) may be the most selfish player I’ve ever seen. And to keep putting him out there to watch him go to the basket to get his layups blocked is crazy.”

– Rudy Fernandez may have gotten hot in this game. Well, yes, he WAS hot. But seriously, he probably gave up more easy points than he scored. The guy bordered on tragic comedy at the defensive end.

– Martell Webster and Fernandez are pulling shots out of their backside, including several three-pointers with hands in their face, but when LaMarcus Aldridge and Brandon Roy come back in the game, the ball stops going to the weak side of the floor. It’s back to the two-man game with Roy and Aldridge and so the ball stops going to the hot hands. Stops cold. And speaking of cold, Roy was 4 for 16 and Aldridge was 5 for 17. Ugh.

– See previous item when talking about the Portland coaching situation. Unless this team changes its offensive system (or actually finds an offensive “system”) this is what’s going to happen in the postseason. The whole scheme is dependent upon those two guys carrying the team with a series of one-on-one moves out of isolation. Works in the regular season when teams have no prep time and cannot adequately prepare in the avalanche of an 82-game season. But in the post-season with time to prepare? It’s a suicidal offensive scheme. Portland made the Suns’ defensive scheme look like the legendary Pistons’ Bad Boys defense.

– One thing I heard afterward from several people — “Well, the Suns were just the better team.” Yes, I’m afraid that’s correct, as long as Nate McMillan is coaching this team. All the injuries have bought McMillan another season — one more year to show what he’s doing isn’t going to work in the playoffs over the long term. I’m astounded at how people don’t look at how many open shots Blazer opponents get out of their offensive systems and how many contested shots Portland ends up having to shoot because its players cannot create their own shots against double and triple-teams.

– Yeah, the off-season will once again be filled with the Blazers searching for “another guy who can create his own shot.” Damn, Roy can do that as well as anybody but not against three guys. Already, the Blazers play more one-on-one than any other team in the league. Roy is in isolation more often than LeBron or Kobe. HELP THE MAN! Get him some stuff that he doesn’t have to turn himself into a pretzel to get! Move the ball and move bodies instead of just standing around! Yeah, I know, you’re sick of hearing that. But the problem is, you’re going to get even more sick of watching it in the future.

– The Blazers used 10 players by halftime. Damn, 10? This is supposed to be time to shorten the rotation, right?

– Nic Batum was sensational at defending Steve Nash. But Batum is also one of Portland’s best shooters and he got just one shot — with Steve Nash guarding him. And he played only 13:59. What a joke. So often, he exited for Bayless — who gave Nash someone to guard. The entire season, the Blazers never figured out how to use Batum’s length to challenge Nash. What a totally wasted opportunity. Instead, we saw Bayless trying to take him to the basket — which the Suns finally figured out how to stop. Man, just have a big man drop off his man and go block the shot — Bayless isn’t going to drop the ball off to anyone, he’s just going to try to force something up.

– Greg Oden? Bizarre. That’s all I can say. We’ll have more time to talk about it this summer, but man, this kid has a long way to go.

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John Canzano says today that Nate McMillan has been outcoached by Alvin Gentry so far in this series. Well, OK. But I would submit that it’s not as bad as it was last season in the playoffs when Houston’s Rick Adelman took him apart game by game.

But the real gem in the column is this one:

McMillan also managed Miller brilliantly in the wake of their well-documented midseason practice blowup (insiders believe McMillan came to practice that day planning to manufacture that confrontation to force the issue).

Well, first off — I find it so ironic that the only way Andre Miller, who many believe is the team’s MVP this season, could make it into the starting lineup this season was to have a 30-minute, profanity-laced tirade with the coach of the team within hearing distance of the media. It was the biggest coaching move of the season, but one that McMillan seemed to have been forced to make. (And people consider him a candidate for coach of the year? In some places, such a thing would get you fired.)

But now we learn that it was McMillan’s intent to start that spat? That he engineered the whole thing? That he figured THAT was the best way to make a change in his starting lineup? My goodness, by waiting so long to make the move with Miller, he cost the team two or three games. And to think he intentionally set out to start that whole thing? Well, I’m sorry but I just don’t think that makes a lot of sense. A shouting match? That’s what had to happen for Andre Miller to win that job?

Really?

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Funny how everyone seems to know this. In the NBA, the aggressive teams seem to get the calls from the officials. I don’t want this to be a discussion about officials, because I think this is probably the way it should be — you take the ball to the basket, be aggressive on offense, you really should be the one who gets calls.

My question is this — why is it that teams, facing a Game 5 or Game 6 in a playoff series, are NOT aggressive?

When a Nate McMillan, for example, says after the Game 5 in Phoenix Monday night that his team wasn’t aggressive, my question is a simple one — why in heaven’s name wasn’t your team aggressive? How does that happen? I can understand getting beat. That happens. Some nights the ball doesn’t go in — or for whatever reason your team just isn’t good enough to win.

But how in the world does it happen that you aren’t aggressive? Is that a coaching thing or a player thing? Seriously, I’ve never understood it and not ever seen much of it in the playoffs until the last few years — where you suddenly hear it all over the league. “We weren’t the aggressors.” Damn, why not?

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