Roy is playing well, Miller is playing well. They can coexist. IMO, this is how they were playing together last last season until Roy got hurt prior to the playoffs.
And like how they were playing for the first 10 games last season when Miller FINALLY got to start at PG in place of Blake. Note: I'm not referring to the goofy 3-guard line-up that had both Roy and Miller playing out of position and guarding much bigger players. I'm referring Miller and Roy, starting together, at their natural PG and SG positions.
With Blake playing like shit, and unable to do the one thing he usually does well (hit a wide open 3-pointer), the Blazers lost 5 of 8 games before Nate finally pulled his head out of his ass and did what most intelligent people had been asking for since the very first preseason game - start his best two guards at their best natural positions (why that was so hard for Nate to figure out, I'll never know). With Blake unable to hit a wide open 3 (7-29, 0.24 3FG%) Roy was also struggling during that stretch as teams sagged off Blake and doubled up on Roy cutting off his penetration.
Miller is inserted into the starting line-up in place of Blake and the Blazers win 8 of the next 10 and Roy plays his best 10-game stretch of the entire season (perhaps the best 10-game stretch of his career). Yet, the clueless continued to insist Roy and Miller "can't co-exist". What a load of bullshit.
The whole Roy and Miller can't co-exist mantra was started by the idiots in the local media (like Canzano is suddenly trusted for his sage basketball wisdom) and perpetuated by a few Miller haters on this forum (one who was jealous because Miller is 100x the player his now-out-of-the-league-fave-PG will ever be).
Face it folks, Andre Miller is a good player and he's a smart player. He knows how to recognize weaknesses and mismatches and exploit them - just like in the 4th quarter last night against the Knicks and just like he did when he single-handedly won that game in Dallas last year with Roy out injured and none of his other teammate able to hit an open shot.
No, Miller is not a good 3-point shooter, but he does so many things Blake can't do (drive the lane for easy lay-ups, get fouled and get to the FT line, pass the ball into the post) he really takes a lot of pressure off Roy and gives the Blazers a way, other than the Roy ISO, to score in the 4th quarter. I thought the whole reason Miller was signed was to help take some of the pressure off Roy so he wouldn't have to carry this team on his back every night and breakdown physically over the course of an 82-game season.
The Roy/Miller starting backcourt is now 31-12. That's a 0.720 won-loss percentage. That's a 59-win pace with Juwan Howard starting at center for almost half of those games and Nicolas Batum missing over 1/3 of those games.
And yet there are still posters in this forum (and John Canzano) who absolutely INSIST that Miller and Roy can never co-exist. I guess the only way to silence the fools would be to go undefeated with an injury depleted roster, because evidently, a 59-win pace with an injury depleted roster just isn't proof enough.
BNM
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