What did we learn tonight???? Some thoughts..

Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Register Log in

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 1 (members: 0, guests: 1)
Boob-No-More said:
I'd estimate it at about 13 feet - just outside the left side of the key, a step or so in from the FT line. And your description is correct. He turned and faced up his man. When the defender backed off, Oden calmly knocked down the open shot.

That little 12 - 14 foot jumper is a GREAT weapon for a big man. It keeps the defense honest, it is often open on the pick and roll and is one of the seams in most zone defenses. A big man who can knock down an open jumper from just inside the FT line is a valuable asset - specially if that same big man is a beast on the low blocks, at great defender and an elite rebounder.
Click to expand...

For the record...I described it as a 12 footer...so it must have been 12 feet...
 
Miller is an interesting player. He looks like nothing special - an old slow, out of shape guy and then BAM, he's by his man and at the rim. He seems to be able to get into the paint at will and does a great job getting defenders to leave their feet. That's a huge difference in styles between him and Blake and also explains why Miller gets 5 FTA/G to Blake's 1 FTA/G.

I know they are supposedly competing for PT against each other, but I think Blake and Miller make a great PG tandem. They have completely different offensive styles and complimentary skill sets. Alternating between them will keep defenses off balance. Just when they get comfortable sagging back and trying to sop Miller's penetration, in comes Blake to knock down the open 3-pointer. Sort of like a pitcher with a 97 MPH fast ball and a GREAT change up.

BNM
 
Last edited:
Blazer_Hippie said:
For the record...I described it as a 12 footer...so it must have been 12 feet...
Click to expand...

I just measured the exact same spot in my driveway and the distance from the center of the hoop to the spot where Oden's toes were located was exactly 13' 2".

BNM
 
I learned that Joel and Greg can both shoot free throws - so hackers beware.
 
I went to the game tonight, sat in really great seats with BlazerWookee and here is what I saw...

I went to Fan Fest also and I was one of the few who thought that Oden didn't look that good. He was plodding up and down the court and wasn't reacting or moving very quickly. Was he faster than last year? Yes. Was he as fast as a NBA starting center should be? Not even close.

Tonight was a different story. Oden looked great. He had a couple of post up moves where he would fake one way and then spin the other direction. Really quick and in control. He missed both shots but, if I remember right, he was fouled both times. He's speed has really improved and he was vocal on defense. A completely different and improved Oden. Wow!

Miller - he has that same change of pace, comes at you slow, then kicks it up a couple of gears and zips past his defender for an easy score that Roy does. He's also a better defender than I thought he was. The team is still not used to playing with him and not looking for the ball on breaks.

LMA will no longer be called LaMarcus Aldridge. His new name is LaMaxus Contract. He looked great, his shot was smooth... But what impressed me most was his 1st qrt defense. You can tell he's really trying to become better in all areas of his game. The hard work in the off season shows. The Blazers can sign him now for less then max or sign him next year for max.

Batum & Rudy - both look tired. A step slow. Both weren't hitting shots. Not a big deal.

Webster - Sorry Spammy but Marty is going to surprise you this year. The dude has got an attitude. Was hustling all over the court. Playing defense. When the game was over I was surprised at how little he had scored because he was really active all game. There were a few times when our players would switch on the pick and roll and Webster would be matched up with the other teams pf or c. They would immediately try and get post him up down low and call for the ball. Webster would have none of this and wouldn't let those guys get to the block. I can't ever recall him bodying up a bigger player like that in years past.

Outlaw - I like Outlaw but I was disappointed in what I saw tonight. He got long minutes at pf and besides hit a couple of 3's he really didn't do much. DUDE, crash the god damn boards. Rebound! There were a couple of times where instead of taking the ball to the rim he pussed a made a weak pass instead. His shot from downtown looks great but he hasn't worked or thought about working on other areas of his game. Disappointing.

Bayless - Someone needs to sit down with him and watch tonight's game. You can tell he wants to play and contribute to this team so badly but tonight he was trying so hard that he ended up dominating the ball way too much and took the rest of the team out of their offensive rhythm. He was matched up against Sergio a lot of the time and it was like he was trying to prove that the Blazers made the right decision in keeping him and letting Sergio go. He needed to just relax and look to get the rest of the team involved. Instead it looked like he wanted to do everything himself. It makes you feel a little bad for him because you can see how much he wants to carve out a place himself on the team.

Sergio - Poor little dude, made a few (typical for him) thread the needle passes. Still can't hit shots. I think he'll be a great player and all star many times over.... in Europe.

Ime - not sure if our players have just gotten better or he's gotten worse but he didn't look that good. I'm not sure if he has a place on this team. Oh and Ime you owe me a Chalupa. Dribbling the clock out when we were 2pts away from free food. Damn you!

Roy - didn't need much from him tonight against a team like the Kings. He had a few buckets that made you know he could have taken over the game at any moment if we had needed him too.

Joel - looked like Joel! Battled, had a couple of nice baskets. Got a little worried when he took that shot to the nuts.

Blake - Saw a different Blake tonight. Was a little more daring with the passes. Was more aggressive on offense. You can tell he wants to start and is trying to take his game to a higher level. There was more than once when he would look to pass the ball to LMA and or Oden when he was bringing the ball up the court but they were just looking to get to their spot on the court and wait for him to call a play. He should have bounced the ball off the back of their head so they would know to look for it the next time. In years past Blake would be the calming influence on a team of young and learning players, play steady, run the offense, limit turnovers. Tonight he looked like a player who was trying to push the team and force things to happen. It was a different Blake. I was impressed.

Tonight, IMO the best lineup was Miller, Roy, Webster, LMA and Oden but the battle between Miller vs Blake and Webster vs Batum is far from over. I think the battle between Oden & Joel is over with Oden being the clear cut starter.

All in all I would give the team a B- tonight. The Kings are no challenge. We have so many options and weapons on this team that it could take until Christmas until the players learn how, who and when to use them.
 
SlyPokerDog said:
I went to the game tonight, sat in really great seats with BlazerWookee and here is what I saw...
Click to expand...

Great summary. Thanks for posting it.

Agreed on Martell. He finally looks like a complete player, not just a spot-up jump shooter. He looked strong and aggressive. He also seemed to have good chemistry with Oden. It will be interesting to see how the minutes end up being divided between him and Batum.

Rudy's shot was off tonight - really off. Not only were they not going in, his release looked horrible. What's up with that?

One other improvement in Oden's game - he's a capable and willing passer. The box score only has him down for one assist, but I remember a couple more good passes where his teammate either missed a wide open shot, or got fouled after receiving the pass from Oden.

BNM
 
Boob-No-More said:
Great summary. Thanks for posting it.

Agreed on Martell. He finally looks like a complete player, not just a spot-up jump shooter. He looked strong and aggressive. He also seemed to have good chemistry with Oden. It will be interesting to see how the minutes end up being divided between him and Batum.

Rudy's shot was off tonight - really off. Not only were they not going in, his release looked horrible. What's up with that?

One other improvement in Oden's game - he's a capable and willing passer. The box score only has him down for one assist, but I remember a couple more good passes where his teammate either missed a wide open shot, or got fouled after receiving the pass from Oden.

BNM
Click to expand...

Thanks, since it wasn't on TV I thought I would go a little in depth.

Oden did have some good passes. He looked really comfortable out there tonight. Huge improvement over last year.
 
I was in section 323 and sat with the "common folk" and had a blast!
 
MIXUM said:
1. Miller is by far our best PG and should start. Poor Blake has no chance.

2. Oden is our best center and should start. He looks great. Pryz... see above.

3. Batum and Webster didnt really impress... but i still think webby is a better all around player then batum. Webster played 30 minutes so im guessing batum will get more min tomorrow night.

4. SERGIO STILL SUCKS LMAO!

5. Still seems like we don't match up well vs the Kings. Why?

6. LA looks in mid season form.

7. Roy might have a nagging injury or is just not a fan of pre season. Numbers looked sergio like and thats bad.

8. Hard to believe blazers didnt break 100 vs sac.
Click to expand...


Unfortunately, I wasn't able to watch this game, but I was watching the game summary on NBA.com. For me, it looks like Miller does need to start, same with Oden. The more they play together, the more they can get those "Sweet Spots" on lock.

Gotta say I was impressed with Oden's game, from the highlights I saw. Looks way more energized. i wish I was able to watch the game though. :(
 
Rodolfo said:
Why don't you just call them the "unwashed masses"?
Click to expand...

Because they were in section 304. Seriously, the scruffed out jackasses behind me thought the height of humor was repeating every word they heard from the jumbotron in a funny voice. Dickwads.

I bet one of them posts here. Hey, jerkface! Singing "do dee do do do" through the national anthem doesn't make you Dane fucking Cook!
 
We learned.....


Nate is an idiot if Miller and Oden don't start.

Roy was on cuise control

Aldridge looks great.

Batum is resting

Miller is easily the best PG we have had in Portland since.....maybe Strickland

Oden, at close to 100% is going to be a pretty good player since he has a PG who will get him the ball

Rudy is resting

Martell is a little rusty, but works his ass off

Outlaw is still nothing but a chucker

Blake is a very good specialist off the bench

Joel needs to accept a back up role

Bayless is still learning, but might be ok in spurts on a good team
 
Mediocre Man said:
We learned.....


Nate is an idiot if Miller and Oden don't start.

Roy was on cuise control

Aldridge looks great.

Batum is resting

Miller is easily the best PG we have had in Portland since.....maybe Strickland

Oden, at close to 100% is going to be a pretty good player since he has a PG who will get him the ball

Rudy is resting

Martell is a little rusty, but works his ass off

Outlaw is still nothing but a chucker

Blake is a very good specialist off the bench

Joel needs to accept a back up role

Bayless is still learning, but might be ok in spurts on a good team
Click to expand...


+1. Agree with everything in this post.
 
We've learned that the Blazers look very physical and they will wear you down. :D
 
agree with mediocre... and god its painful to think i need to watch outlaw look like a deer in headlights for another season.

3 guys i couldnt stand last year...

sergio
frye
outlaw
 
MIXUM said:
agree with mediocre... and god its painful to think i need to watch outlaw look like a deer in headlights for another season.

3 guys i couldnt stand last year...

sergio
frye
outlaw
Click to expand...

I agree a bit on the "chucker" part. If only Outlaw could rebound the damn ball. For someone with his athletic ability, having 2 rebounds per game is embarrassing.
 
SlyPokerDog said:
Miller - he has that same change of pace, comes at you slow, then kicks it up a couple of gears and zips past his defender for an easy score that Roy does. He's also a better defender than I thought he was. The team is still not used to playing with him and not looking for the ball on breaks.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the great summary!

It's funny how similar Miller and Roy's games are. They're the "All-Sleepy" back court.

I like everything I've read and heard about Blake so far. I'd written him off as a quality but somewhat stagnant role playing backup on this team in much the way Joel is. You know what you get from him. Be glad with it and keep expectations down.

When you think about it, this is the first time he's been really pushed by a quality veteran PG. In the past he's focused on fitting in around guys like Roy and Carmello, and beating pretty borderline talent like Boykins, Telfair, Sergio and Jack.

He had to know going into this season that if he had any hope of starting (or even playing significant minutes, with Webster coming back and Fernandez taking off) he had to bring a lot more to the table.

He's still not going to beat out Miller for the starting job. But it's great to see that he's not going down without a fight. Miller has averaged about 35+ mpg since he was a rookie. If Blake keeps it up, this will be the first year he drops significantly below that.
 
MIXUM said:
agree with mediocre... and god its painful to think i need to watch outlaw look like a deer in headlights for another season.
Click to expand...

Cream always rises.

Somebody has to get his minutes significantly chopped this year. We added two guys who normally combine for about 63 mpg (Miller and Webster) and dropped two guys who combine for about 27 mpg (Sergio and Frye). That's about a 36 mpg swing. That's huge.

I've been thinking all along that Webster was one of the guys to see his minutes severely cut. But if Martel is really going to come back to life with hustle and determination, maybe you do some small ball and run him at backup PF instead.

He's shorter than Outlaw by a couple of inches, but he's got to have about 15-20 pounds of muscle on him. Hell, he's got to be bigger than Chuck Hayes.

There really aren't a lot of backup power forwards in the NBA you'd really run your offense through to expose that matchup in the post. So really it'd boil down to whether Webster could be an effective rebounder and help defender. He'd always be playing beside a shot blocker and would get the easier defensive assignment.

On offense, I can really see us running four guards with three point range and Przybilla in there to rebound. That could definitely work.

What if we benched Outlaw and tried running Webster at PF?
 
Another observation I really liked was watching Webster cover every position from 1-4. He's not going to cover most teams PFs,but smaller backup PFs will have just as difficult of a time with Webster as they would with Outlaw. And he was effective staying in front of Sergio, Evans, Nocioni, Martin, Udrih, etc. I loved seeing that. Love the flexibility that offers, if we want to play, say, Rudy, Roy and Webster together.
 
Last edited:
Went to the game last night but was too tired to post after. I agree with most everything said.

One thing that I did want to say, is when Oden turned to face up for that shot the guy (do not know him) next to me said "this is going to be good" and I started to say well he has been practicing it and then Greg just let it go and it was a very nice confident shot and swished. It was a telling sign of his growth and pratice habits.

Dre is the real deal! He is going to help this team immensity. Both the Fan Fest and this first game showed to me that Nate again is trying see if he has the horses to run a more up-tempo game. Judging from what I have seen, this is going to be much more a factor this year. Last night the whole team was trying to up-tempo and it looked to me like they have some horses. That small ball team he had out there near the last, looked like it could do some damage to soem teams. he was playing Web, Rudy, Dre, Oden, and Travis. Prodably sub Batum for Travis and we have a very quick defensive and offensive team. Thoughts?

Fun time.
 
Sug said:
Fun night. Oden looked very good, and Miller is clearly going to be a force for us. On a personal note, I caught a Wells Fargo parachute!
Click to expand...

Was it a Golden Parachute? :devilwink:
 
Webster is so quick and fast down court (one of the fastest on the team). If he can learn to use that speed for good defense, and he seems to be buying in to Nate's philosophy, both in words and court action, he is very likely to supplant Outlaw. My guess is that they will use Travis early in the season to showcase for a trade. Then after the all star break look out for Web and Batum. This could get really good.
 
We also learned that Rudy is a Teacher.

He taught the crowd how to say "free throw" in Spanish I presume, since I forgot what and how to say it. Ha.
 
gatorpops said:
We also learned that Rudy is a Teacher.

He taught the crowd how to say "free throw" in Spanish I presume, since I forgot what and how to say it. Ha.
Click to expand...

Actually he taught us how to say it in Catalan. He's from the part of Spain that speaks Catalan 1st, Spanish 2nd.

And that language lesson was from last season.
 
I think my main point from before still rings true. That being that if nobody in the starting unit lineup changes, we can expect the same slow starts from the team offensivly. I was hoping Batum would bring some scoring this year, but at least in this game, nothing. The starting unit struggled to score as per last year, and the year before. Nate is going to need to move some talent into the starting lineup to produce at least one more weapon.

Oh and Steve Blake may be in great shape, but he is still Steve Blake. A couple of fast breaks showed nothing has changed, he still can't space well on the break, and he still can't make the pass.
 
SlyPokerDog said:
I went to the game tonight, sat in really great seats with BlazerWookee and here is what I saw...

I went to Fan Fest also and I was one of the few who thought that Oden didn't look that good. He was plodding up and down the court and wasn't reacting or moving very quickly. Was he faster than last year? Yes. Was he as fast as a NBA starting center should be? Not even close.

Tonight was a different story. Oden looked great. He had a couple of post up moves where he would fake one way and then spin the other direction. Really quick and in control. He missed both shots but, if I remember right, he was fouled both times. He's speed has really improved and he was vocal on defense. A completely different and improved Oden. Wow!

Miller - he has that same change of pace, comes at you slow, then kicks it up a couple of gears and zips past his defender for an easy score that Roy does. He's also a better defender than I thought he was. The team is still not used to playing with him and not looking for the ball on breaks.

LMA will no longer be called LaMarcus Aldridge. His new name is LaMaxus Contract. He looked great, his shot was smooth... But what impressed me most was his 1st qrt defense. You can tell he's really trying to become better in all areas of his game. The hard work in the off season shows. The Blazers can sign him now for less then max or sign him next year for max.

Batum & Rudy - both look tired. A step slow. Both weren't hitting shots. Not a big deal.

Webster - Sorry Spammy but Marty is going to surprise you this year. The dude has got an attitude. Was hustling all over the court. Playing defense. When the game was over I was surprised at how little he had scored because he was really active all game. There were a few times when our players would switch on the pick and roll and Webster would be matched up with the other teams pf or c. They would immediately try and get post him up down low and call for the ball. Webster would have none of this and wouldn't let those guys get to the block. I can't ever recall him bodying up a bigger player like that in years past.

Outlaw - I like Outlaw but I was disappointed in what I saw tonight. He got long minutes at pf and besides hit a couple of 3's he really didn't do much. DUDE, crash the god damn boards. Rebound! There were a couple of times where instead of taking the ball to the rim he pussed a made a weak pass instead. His shot from downtown looks great but he hasn't worked or thought about working on other areas of his game. Disappointing.

Bayless - Someone needs to sit down with him and watch tonight's game. You can tell he wants to play and contribute to this team so badly but tonight he was trying so hard that he ended up dominating the ball way too much and took the rest of the team out of their offensive rhythm. He was matched up against Sergio a lot of the time and it was like he was trying to prove that the Blazers made the right decision in keeping him and letting Sergio go. He needed to just relax and look to get the rest of the team involved. Instead it looked like he wanted to do everything himself. It makes you feel a little bad for him because you can see how much he wants to carve out a place himself on the team.

Sergio - Poor little dude, made a few (typical for him) thread the needle passes. Still can't hit shots. I think he'll be a great player and all star many times over.... in Europe.

Ime - not sure if our players have just gotten better or he's gotten worse but he didn't look that good. I'm not sure if he has a place on this team. Oh and Ime you owe me a Chalupa. Dribbling the clock out when we were 2pts away from free food. Damn you!

Roy - didn't need much from him tonight against a team like the Kings. He had a few buckets that made you know he could have taken over the game at any moment if we had needed him too.

Joel - looked like Joel! Battled, had a couple of nice baskets. Got a little worried when he took that shot to the nuts.

Blake - Saw a different Blake tonight. Was a little more daring with the passes. Was more aggressive on offense. You can tell he wants to start and is trying to take his game to a higher level. There was more than once when he would look to pass the ball to LMA and or Oden when he was bringing the ball up the court but they were just looking to get to their spot on the court and wait for him to call a play. He should have bounced the ball off the back of their head so they would know to look for it the next time. In years past Blake would be the calming influence on a team of young and learning players, play steady, run the offense, limit turnovers. Tonight he looked like a player who was trying to push the team and force things to happen. It was a different Blake. I was impressed.

Tonight, IMO the best lineup was Miller, Roy, Webster, LMA and Oden but the battle between Miller vs Blake and Webster vs Batum is far from over. I think the battle between Oden & Joel is over with Oden being the clear cut starter.

All in all I would give the team a B- tonight. The Kings are no challenge. We have so many options and weapons on this team that it could take until Christmas until the players learn how, who and when to use them.
Click to expand...


Very cool. Thanks for your game break down, it was much appreciated from the many of us who are stuck with studying the box score.

I'm looking forward to seeing what Miller, Webster and an improved Oden can bring to this team.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top