I believe it’s a general rule that time and experience make for good team defense at the NBA level. Of course there are exceptions to all general rules.

Learning great team defense doesn’t happen overnight or by magic; it happens by repetition the same way all excellance in human endeavors happens. This takes time.

I can’t comment on specific coaching suggestions because I don’t know crap. Nate McMillan, however, is coaching basketball at the highest level of his profession. I trust he’ll learn from his mistakes.

I think the decision to “go to war” with these young men is the right decision because they’ll learn a great deal from this stretch run–we fans may not like the results, but they’ll learn a great deal and what they learn has to be experienced to do any good.

If they flop, I’ll be sorry but I’ll go have a beer and say, “wait till . . .

Nate is a liar straight up. He’s contradicted himself in talking about what the fundamentals of their defense are. Remember when he said “well we’re doing a lot of switching because I want Greg and LMA to be able to move their feet and keep up with smaller guys.” Then less than a month later he says “well we only switch on emergencies.” He’s a flat our liar, right to your faces people yet you take it with a smile. Open your eyes, Nate is a loser. We won’t win anything with him as our coach. I mean the one time we went on a run in that game was in the 4th quarter where we went on an 8-0 run. We get another stop and what happens? Nate calls a timeout. Why? Don’t you typically call a timeout to coach your team up or tell them what they’re doing wrong? That was the only 2 minute stretch the WHOLE game we played decent and he killed our flow by taking a timeout. How stupid can he be? Popovich should have called a timeout, but Nate did him a favor and killed our flow for him.

While Nate might be a good assistant coach (and well honestly I could be a good assistant coach with the Olympic team) he’s not even a decent head coach. The time has come to cut the ties with him. Get rid of the dead weight Portland or he’s going to make us losers like he did to Seattle for 20 years.

If just having knowledge isn’t sufficient at coaching, what credibility does Nate have?

Steve Jones said he wouldn’t mind, but not dealing with a lot of the EGO’s of the players on a team. He was referring specifically to the JailBlazers at that point in time, as PDX would be the place he would want to coach.

The Blazers are no longer EGO maniacs and he has been gone for a year or two – he might want to relive the life.

And he does more than just know… he borderline would be coaching the team from the sidelines… he would at least call out the coaches and what they SHOULD be doing.

just out of curiousity, not trying to be condescending (spelling?). does steve want to coach, and if so, why isn’t he? I noticed he was dropped from national telecasts….the reason again I ask is that I am curious as to how you bring him up with Avery Johnson and Jeff Van Gundy. Vinny Del Negro from what I understand was a great broadcaster and now look at him having a rough time. Do you know snapper personally?

We are going to do a little schooling session on defense of the pick and roll. Take a look at the articles below. Oddly enough, I just picked the four top articles in google.

EVERY single one of them says switching is the last resort. Why is that our primary resort 90% of the time? This has NOTHING TO DO with experience. You fight through it, EVERY TIME. EVERY TIME. EVERY TIME.

Sooooooo… why do we switch 90% of the time? Players aren’t listening to the coach or that’s the game plan. Either one, will resort back to a problem with the coach.

Enlighten me McMuffin supporters.

http://www.ehow.com/how_2066771_defend-pick-roll-basketball.html

http://www.hoopsvibe.com/basketball-coaching/defense/defense-on-a-pick-n-roll-ar400.html

http://www.guidetocoachingbasketball.com/play3.htm

http://www.82games.com/pelton10.htm

We can continue to disagree.

Pick and roll defense of fighting through the pick versus switching. If this is so difficult, why can first year players in college do it so successfully?

Our PG’s being blown past is not just a PG problem. Take a look at our bigs, they do not fight through the screen – JUST AS OFTEN as our PG’s.

Again, I don’t buy into the aspect of “experience”. Experience in playoffs have nothing to do with Pick and Roll defense schemes. Experience in the playoffs have nothing to do with weak-side help. Experience in the playoffs have nothing to do with boxing out. Experience in the playoffs have nothing to do with player substitution patterns. Experience in the playoffs has nothing to do with a lack of standing up for your team. Experience in the playoffs has nothing to do generically with defense.

What EXPERIENCE IN THE PLAYOFFS has to do with is being (i hate this phrase) “Mentally tough.” You will get hotter players, how do you tighten and lock them down? When your under tremendous pressure, how do you prevent that penetration.

We show the same glaring weakness every game and it is REGRESSING, not PROGRESSING. It sounds like you have bought into the Blazer employees exuses of McMillian and JQuick.

Prime example. Youngest team to win an NBA championship, with ZERO playoff experience, never finished ABOVE .500…. Your 1977 Portland Trailblazers. Seems like they didn’t need the “experience” for defensive flaws.

Also, please let me know WHY you felt the Sonics lost, in the last year with McMillian in the playoffs. They were offensive beasts, but trying to outscore their teams. ALA no Defense. Why do you think McMillian had all TEAM USA players switching? haha. It’s laughable!

And to Dan who asked about Steve Jones, I am VERY serious. Steve knows basketball, top to bottom. Very accurate, razor sharp and won’t settle for mediocrity. He would have game plans and would be a great X’s and O’s coach.. Unlike McMuffin.