What I'd Change Next Game Is...

[yakbladder]

1) Less Travis Outlaw, more Batum
2) More Rudy, less whomever needs to sit to get Rudy minutes.

What would you change?

 

[RoyToy]

No more giving Scola/Landry wide open jumpers in the first half.

I'm feeling pretty confident in a Blazers win in game 4.

 

[CaptNapalm]

1) Less Travis Outlaw, more Batum
2) More Rudy, less whomever needs to sit to get Rudy minutes.

What would you change?

This plus more using Roy as a decoy for the first 3 quarters. Corner 3s all night long with Roy at the point on the pick and roll up top, swing to the weak side, Batum and Rudy rain 3s all night.

 

[AgentDrazenPetrovic]

1. If the offense is stagnant, play Rodriguez.
2. Short chain on Outlaw for mistakes.
3. More passing.
4. Go to Greg in the post more.

 

[Jack RamsaysPants]

I'd change the coach.

 

[AgentDrazenPetrovic]

Van Gundy!

 

[hasoos]

I would have Batum pick a fight with Ron Artest in the first quarter. If we are going to get 0 out of him, he might as well do something positive.

 

[mook]

Play Outlaw five minutes. If he isn't hot, shut him down for the night.

Use the Blake/Fernandez/Roy lineup throughout the fourth quarter.

Run more pick and rolls with Oden and Blake. Oden really got in Yao's head there for a little while. And the more you involve Oden in the offense, the less likely refs are going to ding him for insanely stupid fouls. It's the NBA, and exciting dunkers just don't foul out much.

 

[Draco]

This is the best Martell Webster has looked all season.

 

[illmatic99]

Start Rudy and GO?

 

[pakman22]

Blazers can even it up if they:
1) Play Yao as they have been
2) Drive in (draw contact)
3) Stop repeating the same pick and roll in crunch time, more offensive plays - more ball movement.

 

[Sheldon Shape]

Blazers can even it up if they:
1) Play Yao as they have been
2) Drive in (draw contact)
3) Stop repeating the same pick and roll in crunch time, more offensive plays - more ball movement.

1. It will continue.
2. They won't, outside of maybe Brandon Roy. Steve Blake plays like he's playing against zombies and doesn't want them to get their fluids on him. He's scared to drive.
3. Unfortunately Nate McMillan is our coach and he has about as much creativity as Carrot Top does without props.

 

[MadeFromDust]

If Outlaw misses his first couple of shots, bench him for the rest of the game. It's proven that he will be useless.

 

[THE HCP]

If Outlaw misses his first couple of shots, bench him for the rest of the game. It's proven that he will be useless.

I would be curious to see how he started shooting in the past when he has hit game winners for us.

 

[AgentDrazenPetrovic]

Good thing: next game is on TNT...not ESPN or ABC. Fuck those guys.

 

[Sheldon Shape]

I would be curious to see how he started shooting in the past when he has hit game winners for us.

Travis can't get us a game winner if the other team has 4 points more than us because Travis failed to play at a professional level the 3 prior quarters.

 

[number 10]

Start Rudy and GO?

I'd keep Oden on the bench, him picking up early fouls would be disatrous. Leave him on the bench and hope he splits his minutes, hakf Yao, half against Yao's backup.

The change I would make is starting Rudy at SF and moving Batum to the bench. We need Rudy offensively to help ease open up the paint for LMA and Roy, Batum isn't a bad shooter but Rudy makes the defense pay attention. Defensively, Artest hasn't really taken advantage of one skinny defender in Batum, I don't see him scoring on Rudy either. Besides, Artest trying to go one on one is what we want the Rockets to do offensively, better him shooting than Yao or Scola. Then you can have Batum coming off the bench to put an end to Wafer's fun in this series.

 

[pakman22]

1. It will continue.
2. They won't, outside of maybe Brandon Roy. Steve Blake plays like he's playing against zombies and doesn't want them to get their fluids on him. He's scared to drive.
3. Unfortunately Nate McMillan is our coach and he has about as much creativity as Carrot Top does without props.

lol

And yea from the looks of things stopping Yao will continue, but I'm sure Rockets are going to be changing their ways after such a weak win (which I think would be spreading out offense to get Yao a BIT more involved)

Man, honestly - I'm not saying shit about what will happen next game and all because I know everyone is gonna be wrong. Rockets/Blazers series is an unpredictable one, makes it interesting though!

 

[BoBoBREWSKI]

More Rudy, more Batum... less Outlaw, less Frye... and less bullshit calls and less crying by Rick and the rest of the Rockets.

 

[Sheldon Shape]

Man, honestly - I'm not saying shit about what will happen next game and all because I know everyone is gonna be wrong. Rockets/Blazers series is an unpredictable one, makes it interesting though!

I agree, I think it's easy for most here to say the next game is a Blazers win, but I don't think it's a given at all.

 

[Tince]

I don't think adding Batum is the answer. He struggles defending Artest, and even worse, our offense has been horrible with him on the court. I feel like we're always getting outscored when he's on the court.

I would like to see more pick & rolls with Greg.

I would also like to see the people that think they know more than Nate, get in touch with reality.

 

[AgentDrazenPetrovic]

I don't think adding Batum is the answer. He struggles defending Artest, and even worse, our offense has been horrible with him on the court. I feel like we're always getting outscored when he's on the court.

I would like to see more pick & rolls with Greg.

I would also like to see the people that think they know more than Nate, get in touch with reality.

Nate seems to write his substitution patterns before the game, not based on game flows.

There is no excuse for not having a timeout at the end of the game.

 

[Tince]

Nate seems to write his substitution patterns before the game, not based on game flows.

There is no excuse for not having a timeout at the end of the game.

Watch the Lakers against the Jazz, they have the same substitution patterns every game. The Cavs are the same way. This is very common in the NBA.

What good would it do to have 4 timeouts at the end of the game, if you were down 10? You use your timeouts when you feel like your team isn't making the proper reads or adjustments on their own. If we had a team full of veterans, I'm sure we wouldn't use near as many timeouts earlier in the games.

 

[AgentDrazenPetrovic]

We had zero. That caused us to force up really bad shots and not be calm.

And one of the timeouts, Nate took it to correct his shitty twin towers substitution.

 

[Mrblueofnyc]

More of us hitting open shots would make a huge diffrence

 

[Tince]

We had zero. That caused us to force up really bad shots and not be calm.

And one of the timeouts, Nate took it to correct his shitty twin towers substitution.

Too bad you didn't answer my question. I'll just assume you'd rather be down 3 with no timeouts.

Nate made a substitution mistake, or Adleman made a great coach move (maybe both); believe it or not, no coach makes the right decision every time. If a coach is making tons of decisions during a game, I expect him to make a few mistakes.

 

[AgentDrazenPetrovic]

Too bad you didn't answer my question. I'll just assume you'd rather be down 3 with no timeouts.

Nate made a substitution mistake, or Adleman made a great coach move (maybe both); believe it or not, no coach makes the right decision every time. If a coach is making tons of decisions during a game, I expect him to make a few mistakes.

Your question seemed more rhetorical than anything, which is why I didn't bother answering it. I'm not saying that he should save 4 timeouts...but most basketball coaches would want at least one time out just in case the game HAPPENS to be close (and based on the momentum, it would have been).

But if I am a coach, I would remember to save a timeout if the game is going to be close or even reachable...and it was reachable for the Blazers. He had terrible management of the time outs.

Your question is moot, since Nate's timeout he had to take as a result of a substitution mistake did not make any sense whatsoever at the time, and he realized and had to get Aldridge back in the game.

I mean, how dare I question us not having a time out in a game where it would have been useful. Down 3 points, we could have used that time out instead of Steve Blake forcing up that airball...we could have run a play.

We have to second guess Nate's coaching on these types of plays, to ignore it would be idiotic.

 

[alex42083]

Nicolas hasn't really given us much offensively, and we don't really need his defense as much as against other teams. I just want to see more Rudy out there. No way should he have played just 22 minutes with the way he was going and B-Roy in foul trouble, and Travis shooting like shit.

 

[Tince]

We had zero. That caused us to force up really bad shots and not be calm.

And one of the timeouts, Nate took it to correct his shitty twin towers substitution.

Our "Twin Tower" lineup got outscored by 1 point tonight.

 

[Tince]

Your question seemed more rhetorical than anything, which is why I didn't bother answering it. I'm not saying that he should save 4 timeouts...but most basketball coaches would want at least one time out just in case the game HAPPENS to be close (and based on the momentum, it would have been).

But if I am a coach, I would remember to save a timeout if the game is going to be close or even reachable...and it was reachable for the Blazers. He had terrible management of the time outs.

Your question is moot, since Nate's timeout he had to take as a result of a substitution mistake did not make any sense whatsoever at the time, and he realized and had to get Aldridge back in the game.

I mean, how dare I question us not having a time out in a game where it would have been useful. Down 3 points, we could have used that time out instead of Steve Blake forcing up that airball...we could have run a play.

We have to second guess Nate's coaching on these types of plays, to ignore it would be idiotic.

To ignore the consequences of not taking a timeout earlier the game would be equally idiotic. If Nate felt like he needed a timeout to stop a problem he's seeing being repeated or to take advantage of something the Rockets were giving us, then it's just as valuable in the 2nd quarter as it is with 10 seconds left in the 4th quarter.