Trail Blazers at Rockets — what next?
Honestly, I know the playoffs are all about adjustments but at this point, the Trail Blazers probably ought to focus on just playing. Playing with intelligence, skill and intensity.
I don’t think the starting lineup means much, but total minutes do. Sure, Rudy Fernandez needs to play more, particularly if he’s making shots. Certainly, unless he nails some shots early, Travis Outlaw needs to sit more. Yes, Greg Oden needs to play more minutes — but hell, that should have been going on all season. It boggles my mind to think that Oden didn’t play more in regular-season games. How ridiculous is that? Yes, of course, he had foul trouble. So what? They should have played him until he fouled out.
Playing Oden more minutes in the regular season possibly could have cost the team a game or two. Probably not, but maybe. So what? Chasing those wins at the expense of playoff wins is ridiculous. And now that the team is in the pickle it’s in, everyone is looking at Oden to rescue them. I’m not even sure that’s fair, given the fact they couldn’t figure out a way to get him into regular-season games more often.
Let’s get real simple here:
– Contest EVERY Rocket shot. Get a hand up.
– Get to the basket. Or at least try. Quit settling for 20-foot jumpers.
– Yes, keep the ball away from Yao, but not at the expense of easy shots for others. Folks, you can double team and still get back to your man — or haven’t you been noticing what Houston’s doing?
– Play Oden or Przybilla when Yao is NOT on the floor and get the ball in there to them — make the Rockets pay for lack of size rather than just going small with them.
– Get off to a better start. Duh.
– If you want to play “big” with Oden and Przybilla together, go all the way and play Aldridge at small forward with them. He can handle it. Otherwise, there’s really not much difference between Oden/Przybilla and Przybilla/Aldridge, is there? Especially because Joel can’t score like the others.
– Brandon Roy needs to find that playmaker thing he had last season. If he’s going to be the backup point guard, he’s going to have to play like one a little bit.
– Move the ball, move bodies. Make Yao move around the court. This is a recording.
NBA, Trail Blazers | Dwight Jaynes | April 26, 2009
Brandon Roy, Dwight Jaynes, Greg Oden, Houston Rockets, LaMarcus Aldridge, NBA playoffs, Portland Trail Blazers, Rudy Fernandez, Yao Ming
I thought Rudy went way beyond just making shots in the last game.
The yanked him in the 4th anyway so Travis could work his magic, then with less than 2 minutes they rushed back to him and said, “Sorry, we dissed you. Now go save us.”
That next 3-pointer Rudy hit to bring them within 3 was Reggie Miller-like in its degree of difficulty. It was a legendary shot.
Then they don’t go back to him and Blake air-balls.
There’s no guarantee Rudy will be that hot again, but maybe one of the army of assistant coaches who watch the game could be assigned to notice these things.
It’s so rare when someone is in the zone ready to be a hero. It’s so wrong not to get a win but it’s also wrong not to give the man a chance. He earned his place on the big stage at that moment, and we give him the hook for Travis Outlaw? Where’s the basketball sense? Rudy was in the zone inside the zone.
The coaches have got to see that. It was right there in front of them and they blew it. What about 5 threes don’t you notice?
Go Blazers.
Dwight,
I couldn’t agree more with what you said about Nate and the coaches not playing Oden more in the regular season. His minutes were handled SO poorly I was nearly apoplectic when I heard some of the NBA writers at ESPN nominating him for coach of the year runner up.
I think Nate does some things very well, but he really screwed thing up by keeping Oden’s leash so short during the season.
The coaches blew it because Blake forced a horrible 3?
Nate played Oden as much as Oden allowed, get off his back.
If a player ends the game with fewer than six fouls, he could have played more minutes — unless he played 48.
– Dwight
Dwight – i love you blog. Unbiased. First thing I read in the morning.
No, the coaches blew it when they yanked Rudy when he was playing out of his mind. You might have seen him when he sat down – throwing down the towel and saying something.
Normally, I hate it when players react to being pulled from a game, but it’s got to make more sense than this. And they proved it by going back to him too late in crunch time.
Now, in one of those huddles when we were using all our timeouts the coaches could have said, “Feed Rudy. He’s in the zone.”
Who knows if that would have affected the bad shot by Blake, but the point is we might have been up 5 by then anyway.
I’m a big fan of Nate – he’s got to keep track of a zillion things. That’s why I put this on the other coaches. Somebody should have gotten it, and it’s not asking them to do anything that Nate himself hasn’t preached all year: If someone has it going on, you feed that person. That’s true is it’s Travis, that’s true if it’s Brandon. Rudy was begging for a chance to win the game for them and they missed it ’til it was too late.
Indiana didn’t take out Reggie Miller and put in a guy shooting 2 for 11 in the 4th quarter. That’s not how you win.
I only say it in the sense that this is one of the clear things they should do better going forward.
There are coaches monitoring individual things of all sorts. Assign someone to detect extreme shooting hotness. It was right there in front of them.
So the tone I am getting here is Dwight is sorta agreeing with Nate. Sorta. Focus on playing ball and and stop over thinking the game. To me that is balling with intelligence. Intensity is a must for these guys. They have got to come out with that emotional edge and intensity like they have shown against the Spurs and Lakers. It is a shame that Oden’s minutes were so managed during the regular season. But he did play better and start to turn the corner when he came off the bench and took that bit of a step backwards to go forwards thing. I think Dwight hit on it tho in that Nate was afraid Oden’s learning curve and giving up foul points late in games was going to possibly cost them a few games. It baffled me constantly how Oden would get 4 – 5 fouls and then sit the rest of the game. It would have done Oden good to learn how to play on with that 5th foul as well as just the time on the floor. It may be unfair now to expect so much of Oden. Maybe some fans will blame Oden if he tries to step up and fails. But I don’t think the more seasoned ones will. As it has been stated Oden has to play more. He has to carry more load and score more. More so now than ever.
Hey Dwight,
As usual you are right on (care to coach??). The Blazers are
a bit of an enigma when it comes to that pesky first quarter and frankly, I’m sick of it. Like a lingering illness…
It would be nice to get a handle on the first 7 minutes or so every game. Getting battered and buried is no fun to watch no less experience. Thanks for your reflections. This is IT!
Go Blazers!
My game 3 prediction was to lose by 8 points. Was much closer than that. Today – we win by 8 points. Next home game – we blow them out and the Blazers have moved up a notch.
We are going to lose at some point in this playoff run. It’s just a matter of how many steps we take before we finally have met our match. Too bad we couldn’t have gotten to the #3 seed and perhaps had three series in total before being defeated by the Lakers.
Been saying all year with Oden and his minutes. Nate treated him like he was Kobe Bryant or LeBron. “uh oh…he’s got 2 fouls…gotta pull him…uh oh…3 fouls in the first half…gotta pull him”
I think Nate’s biggest weakness is his by the book nature. It’s evident with his substitutions and his game plans.
I feel Nate McMillan has failed to fully utilize Rudy the whole season. I guess Nate’s policy on Rudy was to not lean on him too much, to protect him and bring him along. Also, coach McMillan has a way of letting the players set themselves up for success or failure…kind of a “give them enough rope” thing. So, since Travis is the more senior member of the team, he went with Travis in game 3 even though he was not playing well. I think this is a good philosophy for a coach of a young team.
That being said, I have pretty much been waiting all season for Rudy to find that next gear in the playoffs. I would have thought coach McMillan was clued into what a great crunch time/big game player Rudy is. Luckily, every time coach McMillan has screwed something up like this, he goes and totally redeems himself. I hope that is the case tonight. Because Rudy is a better player than Outlaw, and he needs to play and have the ball in his hands for the Blazers to have the best chance of winning.
Unbiased my eye…..
Nate’s substitutions are so routine, he should just hand them to the scorers’ table before the game. Even without foul trouble, Oden gets 20 minutes — seldom many less and almost never many more.
Colin,
Coach Mac knows Rudy’s clutch capabilities very well. He observed it himself during the gold medal game. If I recall, some other NBA coach said to him something like, “That’s your guy huh?” In which Nate held a sheepish grin. So I don’t know what happened during the regular season that turned Rudy to just a spot up three point shooter on Mac’s team. Your guess about the coach’s thinking sounds plausible.
And if Rudy is hitting 2 for 11, and Travis is draining, then feature Travis down the stretch.
It’s not a personnel thing as much as a heat check.
Ref’s do not play fair. PERIOD
Give me a break Brian. Just like in game 3, the Blazers had so many opportunities to win this game, but they didn’t execute.
7 turnovers in the 4th quarter
10 offensive rebounds in the 4th quarter.
That’s the ballgame right there, and that had nothing to do with the refs.
So many things you can say about this game, but basically, after going up by seven, the Blazers pretty much just gave the Rockets the game.
You can lay blame for the Rockets getting ten 4th quarter offensive rebounds at the feet of Greg Oden. If he could stay out of foul trouble then he would have been in there pulling down boards. After all, that’s what he’d getting paid for isn’t it?
Greg didn’t foul out.
If Nate wanted him in there for rebounding in the 4th quarter, he had that option