We lost to Houston because the lineup we had basically had two people who could create offense in LMA and Roy. This Houston lineup will sans Yao, McGrady and Artest with a front court that has one 7 footer, and everyone else 6'9 or under. Oden would have a distinct advantage to get Scola, Hayes, Landry and Andersen into fast foul trouble with his quickness returned as well with his massive size in comparison.
As much as I, and most people, love Joel he simply cannot do this and we often are playing 4-5 on offense with him on the court. This leads to double teams on LMA and Roy (who will be contending with Ariza and Battier because Batum doesn't really hurt people on his own) and we again have the same problems we had last year with this starting lineup.
Nate has this set in his mind where we must divide lineups to even them out and that players must come and go at specific times in the period. Almost every single Blazer fan could probably tell you at what time Joel Przybilla or Greg is going to sub out for the other, same with Nic for Outlaw just because Nate is extremely rigid.
The argument that many players bring their third best player off the bench is valid but to be fair doesn't really apply to Portland, especially in regards to Outlaw. Outlaw comes off the bench because he is an absolute wreck when he starts at small forward. He makes bad decisions, is indecisive at other times, is lost on defense, and is much better at power forward. But he cannot start at power forward with LMA at center because Travis is a poor rebounder, where Joel and Greg are absolute beasts.
Ginobli, Terry, Odom etc coming off the bench are fine because their starting lineup isn't playing 4-5, 3-5, and sometimes 2-5 on offense with them on the bench. Steve Blake is a great three point shooter but he can't really create for other people where Miller is able. I'm fine with Batum starting over Webster because the three in our lineup basically stands in the corner and Nic is pretty good defensively. Joel is a great rebounder and defender, but Greg is a great rebounder and improving defender while providing the offense (and even just the hands) that Joel does not possess.
People will point out that we're fine offensively because we were the most efficient team; however, I will respond we were the most efficient team because we had great offensive rebounders. Overall our offense depended far too much on Brandon Roy isos if Blake and Batum weren't hitting their three pointers because they couldn't do much else.
