Will Blazers’ three-guard lineup end tonight?
It should. But I doubt it, because Nate McMillan is a little more stubborn than that.
In Memphis, Portland is facing a team that has some offensive firepower and I think it would be a mistake to set the defense up with Brandon Roy on Rudy Gay, Andre Miller on O.J. Mayo and Steve Blake on Mike Conley. That’s pretty much three mismatches favoring the home team.
I would especially worry about Roy against Gay, who might be able to manhandle Roy a bit and be pretty physical with him. I think this is the exact kind of matchup problem that makes the three-guard lineup problematical. Under normal circumstances, you’d have Martell Webster taking on Gay, Roy matching up with with Mayo and Miller taking Conley — much more favorable if you’re really emphasizing defense.
We shall see. It shapes up as a road trip full of winnable games for Portland. And don’t forget, “Talkin’ Ball” shows are on after every game of this road trip — starting about a half hour after the end of the game.
Media, NBA, Trail Blazers | Dwight Jaynes | November 10, 2009
Andre Miller, Brandon Roy, Dwight Jaynes, Memphis Grizzlies, Mike Conley, O.J. Mayo, Portland Trail Blazers, Rudy Gay, Steve Blake
Dwight, would you feel more comfortable if Rudy started at the 2 instead of Blake? Roy would still be stuck with Gay, but presumably Rudy could guard Mayo and Miller could guard Conley. Not a huge improvement defensively, but maybe enough to make the tradeoff worthwhile. Rudy seems to be the only guy on the team that can execute the pick-and-roll (as evidenced by his success running it with Przybilla the other night, which can’t be easy). I’d like to see a lineup that gets Rudy more time playing with Oden and Aldridge.
We shall see. In your posts on this topic you focus on being weaker at three positions defensively. But isn’t the Blazer defensive scheme all about forcing the ball into areas and relying on help and switching? A unit of five guys who know what they are trying to accomplish together on the court may end up being more effective on the defensive end than more talented one on one defenders with no cohesion. This probably is not the long term line up but it has proven it gets the team going in the right direction for two games.
By the way, who is Nate actually being stubborn with in this case? Fans and bloggers? I am glad Portland has a coach with Nates fortitude who sticks by his decisions while opinions swirl around him constantly. If the team was 0-2 or looked bad in their wins I could understand the uproar over the line up, but this over reaction is pretty ridiculous, to use your word from the other day. Especially when coupled with his comments on it being a temporary thing.
We shall see.
Dwight, I am not so sure about your view of these matchups. I would give more weight to quickness and savvy (over size) in wing matchups. I.e. Roy, Miller, and Blake are quicker than Roy, Miller, and Webster. The opponent would have to go out of their normal pattern and post up non post up players in order to take advantage of the matchups. And I am not so sure how productive that would be with GO and LA giving help.
Also, the defensive end is always balanced out by the offensive end. The trio of Roy, Miller, and Blake is also likely to be more efficient than the trio with Webster because of superior ball handling, passing, and shooting. Webster looks awkward with the ball at this point and he has been shooting poorly as well. I think a better argument can be made for the Rudy, Roy, Miller line up, but I am still not sure it is better because of Blake’s ability to guard the point and Miller’s ability to guard the two guard.
Dwight, (after the Memphis game)
Who you gonna start? TO and MW stunk it up tonight. The Blake, Miller and Roy combo came out looking pretty good. Rudy Gay? OJ Mayo?
The main adjustment that I see is that since Rudy is more of an all around contributor like Miller and Blake, he deserves more front line run with GO and some of the other starters.
I figure Nate will use this lineup until we start getting burned,
I think represents “competitive transition”, keeps us competitive and transitions us to Miller at point.
Miller is clearly more an offensive threat than our other milk toast point guard.
Rudy Gay playing physical? Since when?
He’s going to run it out there because they’ve won 2 games with the lineup. Until it doesn’t he’s going to keep running it out there. I’m confused, was this meant to make Brandon happy (which is a problem) and slowly transistion Blake to the bench?
Is this move in effort to keep Roy happy because he is buddies with Blake? Other than that scenario it just doesn’t look right. If Nate wants to go with a 3 guard line-up wouldn’t it make more sense to go with: Miller, Rudy and Roy? Rudy is longer and much more athletic than Blake and a better passer in my opinion. With the improved play of Bayless, Blake should be the one on the bench.
I think we should play Rudy no matter how bad he is playing. Why should anyone actually have to earn something?
if this is the criteria, Blake would have started the season on the bench after his terrible preseason. Instead, he was still given his 30+ minutes per game to work through his shooting slump.
Rudy is outplaying Blake in every facet of the game other than shooting, and given sufficient and consistent minutes, his shooting would come around just like Blake’s did.
rec +1
C — he will get physical the minute he sees who is guarding him.
Good point Dwight I can see how the 3 guard lineup might not work against Memphis. Then again if it comes out rolling then Memphis might have to adjust to the Blazers. It could turn into a game of cat and mouse. I believe I have heard you say before that good teams make lesser teams adjust to their game plan. Is it possible that Portland makes Memphis adjust? Anyway I agree the 3 guard is not a good long term lineup but it will be good to give them a lot of run together so that McMillan has that many more looks in his arsenal. This team is so deep that they should be able to come out with a different looks to take advantage of other teams weaknesses.
Dwight knows all. Nate is being stubborn by winning games. Terrible idea.
Isn’t Zephyr the name of the monkey in the Barbar and Zephyr book?
One thing that is not mentioned about the 3 amigo line-up is the space it gives our bigs to work in the paint.
LA should be able to punish Zack all night. Oden should have a decent night against the slower Gasol bro. And Roy should be able to out quick Gay and keep him in possible foul trouble.
Plus the quicker tempo allows for easier baskets either in transition or early offense. Memphis will want to run and will hopefully get suckered into a ragged game- so I’m not as worried about our weak pick and roll defense tonight.
This whole lineup problem is going to get solved in the next 60 days, when Portland sends a nice package to lesser team in exchange for draft picks. I think the package will be something like Fernandez-Outlaw to a team like Charlotte.
I am not opposed to trading Rudy if he’s part of a package that brings us back a key contributer.
That said, if we move Rudy for a draft pick in order to clear up minutes to continue playing a journeyman point guard 30 minutes a game at the off guard position, then KP is a complete fool.
Short perimeter defenders are a big issue with wings who can shoot. Were Roy trying to guard, say, a healthy T-Mac or a Kevin Durant, he’d have problems–the taller forwards could shoot over him without having to worry about getting rejected.
But Rudy Gay is not a good outside shooter, neither is Conley. Mayo can light it up, but he’s also short for his position.
And Gay’s a terrible defender when trying to check slower forwards–Roy should be able to have his way with him on offense.
The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Sonics fans used to complain that George Karl gave Vincent Askew 25 mpg, because Askew had incriminating photos of Karl. The running joke was that Askew kept two Polaroids in his socks during games, that had George Karl doing some bad thing. I wonder if Blazernation will start to joke that Steve Blake has incriminating digital photos of Coach McMillan?
Man Dwight, Nate thinks out of the box once in a blue moon, let him roll with it for a little while….
Let’s wait until it fails first, right? Then you would actually have something to write about. I love your take on the team, but I do feel the column has been getting a wee bit too grumpy lately.
The team has to experiment a bit if it is going to find chemistry and effective rotation patterns. Give it some time.
I dunno. Is it just me? I swear I read that Nate said a day or two ago that this new lineup was here to stay at least thru this current road trip. Any one else read that? So I am betting that uh, unless the lineup proves to be a brutal mistake. We all know how brutally stubborn Nate can be so when I say brutal mistake. I mean brutal. Against the competition coming up on this road trip I don’t see that happening. My guess is this new starting lineup is here to stay at least thru the current road trip