SB Nation User Blog: hurryup09

Who SAYS the 3-guard line-up is inferior defensively?

hurryup09 — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:26:22 -0000

I'm hearing a lot of pros & cons about the great 3-guard experiment offensively, but the near-universal sentiment--both in the media and here at BE--is that Miller, Blake, & Roy will get killed at the defensive end as soon as the team encounters an opponent with a big, talented shooting guard and/or small forward.

That makes perfect sense, and is very likely true. Even Nate has said he only decided to stick with this starting line-up for awhile after scanning the upcoming schedule and seeing no unfavorable matchups. But let's think outside the box for a minute. After all, most of us would have assumed that Miller-Blake-Roy (MBR for short) would tank at the offensive end as well, and so far that hasn't been the case, has it?

I believe it was on this Sunday's "Talking Ball" that I heard Dwight Jaynes lay out the obvious argument against MBR at the defensive end. He said something like the following: "Compare the old & new starting line-ups: Blake at the one is a slightly better defender than Miller. Roy at the two is a much better defender than Blake. Martell at the three is a much better defender than Roy. And that old starting line-up was no great shakes defensively itself! Now they're worse at three positions. How in the world is that going to work?"

Strong argument. Only one problem: Jaynes is comparing guys as individual defenders. Memo to Dwight: basketball is a TEAM GAME! There have been numerous successful NBA squads that included multiple guys who were poor to mediocre individual defenders. But as a group they were so smart, unselfish, and organized, and they communicated so well on the court, that they played above average defense as a team.

Despite having had practically zero practice time as a defensive unit, MBR has already shown signs of that kind of synergy. With Miller quarterbacking (loudly!), double teams have come quickly and unpredictably. Rotations have been crisp & aggressive. Penetrators have gotten funneled to shotblockers (LMA & GO or Przy), triggering fast breaks the other way. Really, it's been MBR's DEFENSE that's been the most impressive. The offense, featuring--wonder of wonders--lots of easy baskets, has largely been fueled by stops at the defensive end.

The MBR line-up has yet to face a potent offensive team. (The Spurs don't count because Parker got hurt.) They may well indeed get killed the first time they face that test. But I thought I'd throw out the possibility that they WON'T. Are there any other open minds out there?

Poll

How will the MBR starting line-up fare defensively when it faces a potent offense featuring a high-scoring two and/or three?

Maybe we've underestimated the Frenchie/Pippen factor

hurryup09 — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 21:47:16 -0000

OK, like most Blazer fans, I'm starting to be concerned. I understand that the Blazers' offense is a work in progress, what with a new point guard and a returningwing being introduced (Miller & Martell, respectively), along with a major new weapon (Greg Oden's improved low-post game). But the defensive futility in Houston really threw me. Could it be that Nic Batum--who models his game after Scotty Pippen's--was important to this team's success last season in a similar manner to Pippen in Chicago?

Of course, Nic is no Scotty--not yet. Call him a Pippen in progress. But his game at the defensive end and in the open court is already similar. Last night, Ariza scored 30 points, I believe. With Batum shadowing him, I think he would have been lucky to get 20. In that event, the Blazers win the game and everyone is gaga over Roy going for 41. Instead, there's endless handwringing over Miller, LMA, etc.

Blazer pre-season games on t.v.?

hurryup09 — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 19:54:52 -0000

I thought I'd heard on Courtside that at least one preseason game is to be televised. But I just spent 20+ minutes trying to verify that on-line (@ Blazers, Comcast, & CSN sites) and on the phone with Comcast folks.

Any info would be appreciated. And sorry to take up Fanpost space with this. But 20 minutes of futile inquiry seemed like enough! Geez...

P.S. I do realize that Sunday's Fan Fest event is going to be on CSN.

HAH!! KP confesses to his point guard's bias!

hurryup09 — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 03:50:54 -0000

According to Ben, today KP confessed to him that while there's an NBA adage that "you can never have too many big men," as a former point guard he believes that "you can never have too many point guards." Does this ring a bell with anyone? I've repeatedly suggested at this site that KP's tendency to pack the Blazers' roster with point guards (as many as five at one point) at the expense of bangers might reflect the bias of a former point guard. Yet virtually no one around here thought I might be on to something. Our genius GM has a blind spot? RIDICULOUS!! [For reference, check out my 11-18-07 post, "Where's the Beef," and my 5-20-09 reprise, "Kevin Pritchard Declares that Hurryup '09 Was Right!"]

Thankfully, KP seems to have moderated his point-guard hoarding ways lately. And in Pendergraph & Cunningham, he's added a couple of young forwards with a penchant for getting after it on the boards. But this turnabout only came about after the Blazers met a predictable fate in last season's playoff series vs the Rockets--namely getting pushed around like little kids by a team with a full complement of "Maxsaps" (Millsap/ Maxiell types).

The reason it's more advantagous to stock up on bangers than on point guards seems obvious. Bangers, if they're doing their jobs, tend to rack up fouls. So you need to be able to throw them at your opponent in waves--especially in the playoffs, when physical play is most rewarded. Bangers also tend to get injured a lot--again due to the physical nature of their job. Therefore, "you can never have too many." By contrast, point guards tend to commit fewer fouls and spend less time in the trenches getting beat on. So, as a rule of thumb, you don't need as many surplus ones on your roster. The spares only cause problems by griping about playing time.

Our genius GM has now realized the error of his ways. Didn't he say, following the Blazers' early exit from last season's playoffs, that the one lesson he took away from that series was that the Blazers need more toughness? Clearly, KP has corrected his former blind spot. Er, or has he? Today's remark to Ben suggested backsliding!

Please, KP; if you elect to fill that 15th roster spot now, don't bring aboard another midget malcontent!

ANDRE MILLER IS ALREADY PROVIDING VETERAN LEADERSHIP!

hurryup09 — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 17:00:45 -0000

My favorite Andre Miller answer to the barrage of questions he's received from the Portland media came during Monday's Courtside. Pardon the paraphrasing, but the exchange went something like the following. Mike Rice: "So, Andre, are you in shape yet?" Miller: "I ain't gonna lie to you. Summertime is for resting up, letting your injuries heal, etc. I'm not doing a thing until it's nearly time for training camp. Then I'll work my way into shape and be ready to go on opening day."

Already, the guy is providing that badly-needed "veteran leadership!"

I'm not being sarcastic. If Andre had been around, do you really think the Blazers would have suffered all those training camp & early-season wear & tear injuries the past couple of seasons? [E.g., Martell, Roy, & Frye's ankle & foot problems] Those guys were spending their entire off-seasons obsessively working out & scrimmaging. Their bodies never had a real chance to recover from the 82-game NBA grind. Now, do you think they'd have gone overboard like that if they'd had a role model on the squad like Andre?

Here's one of the NBA's iron men: a guy who's averaged 14.6 points, 7.4 assists, and 4.2 rebounds per game in a ten-year career while missing a total of 5 games (two of those while visiting an ill family member, I believe). Who do you think the young Blazers would have listened to? Andre, or the eager beaver coaches telling them they can't rest one moment of the off-season?

IS KP LIKE A TROUT (THE FISH KIND)?

hurryup09 — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 19:26:49 -0000

The way that KP and the other NBA GM's repeatedly passed on DeJuan Blair in the late first and early second round of Thursday's draft reminded me of the feeding habits of certain species of trout. Under some circumstances, these trout will feed on anything edible that floats by. But at other times, they have absolute tunnel vision, zeroing in on a particular bug that's currently hatching--e.g. mayflies--to the exclusion of all other food.

When that happens, a fisherman lacking a mayfly imitation in his tackle box--of the exact matching size & color that the trout are looking for--might as well pack up and head home. He will NOT, under any circumstances, even get a trout to look at anything he drifts past him. The offering could be the trout equivalent of a steak dinner. No matter--if that trout is zeroed in on the trout equivalent of a hot dog with relish & yellow mustard, that's all he'll feed on.

That's what I think NBA GM's--including KP, our fearless leader--are sometimes like. Once they've zeroed in on a Pendegraph, you could offer them the next Michael Jordan and they'd pass.

Now, I realize that KP is the ultimate preparer. He has a plan in place for every continency imaginable. But this time, the unimaginable happened. After DeJuan Blair's negative knee report came out of the pre-draft camp, KP must have considered the possibility that Blair would drop to #22. But like everyone else, he apparently concluded that it was too risky to offer a guaranteed contract to an undersized four with two questionable knees. And it was probably unthinkable to KP that the best offensive rebounder in the draft would drop clear to #31--let alone #33.

So my suspicion (reinforced by Nate's post-draft comments) is that while the Blazers' braintrust certainly had done the usual basic research on Blair that they do on all players in a draft, they never did the kind of painstaking work-up they do on people they're actually targetting. I mean, the Blazers not only talk to these kids' coaches going back to AAU ball--they talk to their teammates, their neighbors, everybody who ever KNEW them. Lacking that kind of in-depth info on Blair, KP would have been loath to pull the trigger on him, even at #33.

Not so Buford over at the Spurs (picking at #37). He must have thought, "To hell with it, I'm going to take a chance. It's only a #37 pick and an unguaranteed contract, so what's to lose? And if the knees etc. pan out, Blair will be an absolute steal."

I wish KP had thought that way. But he's such a preparation guy--that would have gone totally against his grain. I suspect that KP--like his counterparts picking in the late first and early second rounds--just couldn't break with his strict protocol of drafting guys he knows inside out. Bluntly, I suspect that KP was caught with his pants down and let an impact player slip thru his fingers.

Thinking about it, this would explain some other cases of obviously talented players dropping like stones in the draft. Once a guy drops four or five slots, a different dynamic develops that causes him to KEEP falling. Now he's being made available to teams that never had him on their radar. Those team have already got other guys targeted who they've thoroughly researched. How can they pull the trigger on this guy who appears out of the blue? It's much easier to pass and figure the guy probably fell that far for good reason.

I hope I'm wrong about all this. I hope that KP had very good reasons for passing on Blair--even at #33. I hope that our genius GM--unlike those finicky trout passing on tasty morsels--didn't have a blind spot when it came to a certain deliciously beastly power forward.

Will Trout Be the Blazer's Jameer Nelson??

hurryup09 — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 08:24:21 -0000

Tonight, even after Howard missed two free throws with about 11 seconds remaining, the Magic still were up by three and had the upper hand. As long as they didn't allow a three-pointer, they'd be even in the series and the pressure would shift to the Lakers. But on the ensuing play, Jameer Nelson unaccountably played back on Derek Fisher, allowing him to drain a wide-open three-pointer, leading to an overtime victory for the Lakers. With that one boneheaded play, Nelson effectively ended his team's promising championship run. And with that play, Nelson reminded me of why I hope the Blazers trade Trout.

In fairness, Trout isn't the only Blazer player who makes lots of dumb plays. But the others are newbies, whereas Trout is now a six-year veteran. It's simply unrealistic to think his ability to think the game of basketball (see, I didn't mention "basketball IQ") will improve going forward.

Returning to Nelson's disastrous brain fart: this was exactly the type of boneheaded play at a critical time in a playoff series that I've long believed Trout will someday make. I've watched the NBA for a very long time now, and I've noted that the difference between champions and also-rans is hair-thin. We're seeing that once again in this playoff run by the Lakers. They aren't significantly more talented than their opponents. They just make fewer dumb plays at critical moments.

Believe it or not, I love Travis Outlaw. True, I've complained about his lack of toughness & physicality. But I love his sweet, laid back personality, his magic jumpshot, and his ability to leap out of the gym. I realize that he's a glue guy in terms of team chemistry, and that he's won regular season games for the Blazers--quite a few of them in fact. But in the playoffs, every flaw in your team becomes magnified, and championship teams simply don't have players who consistently make dumb plays.

After Nelson's gaffe, Jeff Van Gundy was beside himself. He said the lack of basketball IQ on the part of some NBA players never ceases to amaze him. He asked how you can not be aware of the time & score? He said, "I'd like to know what was going through Nelson's mind on that play."

Please, KP, don't let us hear those words someday about a Blazer player at the critical juncture of a Finals appearance. Let it be the OTHER team that makes the boneheaded plays. Don't give Trout away. But if you can get real value for him, pull the trigger. (And if Trout proves me wrong someday and wins a championship with someone else, I'll take the blame. Because we all know that you base your decisions on BE fanposts.)

Postscript: I didn't expect a lot of agreement on this Fanpost, and I didn't receive it. But now, should my premonition come true someday, I'll have the faint pleasure of writing an "I told you so" Fanpost. Kinda like the Fanpost I wrote after the young Blazers proved to lack the necessary toughness & physicality to pass their first playoff test.

Kevin Pritchard declares, "HURRYUP'09 WAS RIGHT!"

hurryup09 — Wed, 20 May 2009 08:47:02 -0000

OK, that's not exactly what KP said (on The Fan Tuesday afternoon). What he said was that the one thing he took from the Blazers-Rockets playoff series was, "Let's get some toughness and some physicalness in here...We may need to go out into free agency and look at something like that."

Please excuse the "I told you so," but since my earliest comments & posts at BE back in '07, I've been saying EXACTLY that. In fact, I've often specifically cited the Houston Rockets as the type of team who would be able to exploit the Blazers' lack of toughness & physicality during a playoff series--when the intensity always ratchets up and the officials are forced to let a lot of contact go.

What I saw in the Rockets that the Blazers lacked was an abundance of "Maxsaps"--Millsap/ Maxiell type forwards off the bench who bring plenty of toughness and plain old muscle to the playoff fray. During the regular season, you can get away with fielding a trio of beanpole, jumpshooting power forwards like LMA, Trout, & Frye. Even during the playoffs, there's a place for a supremely talented finesse foward like LaMarcus. But you must balance him with some beef, because teams like the Rockets come at you with Maxsaps in waves.

Back when I was saying all this, a few agreed. But a lot more folks didn't see it. They felt that if the Blazers needed any added toughness, the addition of Greg Oden to the roster would fix it. I replied GO and Przy wouldn't be enough: that when the going got rough, those two would be like the little Dutch boy trying to hold back the waters with his finger in the dike. Having a big, tough center isn't enough when the refs swallow their whistles and the opponent has bruising forwards--and available fouls--up the ying yang.

My most controversial suggesting back then was that perhaps the fact that KP had been a point guard caused him to overlook the critical role that physical bigs play on championship teams. After all, the Blazers at that point were fielding four point guards (Jack, Sergio, Green, and Blake), without a Maxsap in sight. (Josh Roberts & Raef LaFrenz? Please!) I suggested this possiblity in a post entitled, "Where's the Beef," and convinced absolutely no one. Our genius GM might have a blind spot? Heresy!!

Well, perhaps KP's point guard background has had nothing whatsoever to do with his failure to field a more physical team up to this point. But judging from yesterday's comments, KP himself has come around to the view that the key missing ingredient on this talent-loaded young Blazer squad is toughness.

Brandon Bass, Big Baby?? I don't know who our Maxsap is going to be, but you can bet that the '09-'10 Blazers will be featuring a back-up forward (or two) who NO ONE is going to shove around. And that will pay big dividends in next season's playoffs.

"LOOK OUT HOUSTON: NOW CANZANO'S YOUR PROBLEM"

hurryup09 — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 00:13:59 -0000

In today's Oregonian, John Canzano wrote an obnoxious column aimed at the Rockets, entitled "Look Out Houston: Now It's Your Problem." Basically, Canzano called the Rockets a bunch of chokers and stated that if they should lose Game 6 in Houston on Thursday, the series is as good as over.

What a crock. First, the Rockets aren't chokers. The reason they haven't gotten out of the first round in years is that they're an injury-prone team of average talent playing in the tough Western Conference. Second, even if the Rockets should lose Game 6, Game 7 is no lock for the Blazers. The Rockets have shown they're quite capable of winning in the Rose Garden.

Most of all, Canzano's column annoyed me because I feel for Yao. Yes, I know he's the 7-6 giant standing in the way of the Blazers' manifest destiny. And yes, Yao couldn't foul out of a game if he took a gun out on the court. Still, as Wilt Chamberlain said, "Nobody loves Goliath." And poor Yao has more pressure on him than anyone can imagine. Greg Oden has had to deal with unreasonable pressure, but Yao has the pressure of living up to the dreams and expectations of BILLIONS OF HIS COUNTRYMEN. If you ever watched the documentary "The Year Of Yao," you have to have some compassion for this poor guy.

Am I rooting for the Rockets to pull out this series? Of course not. But having a classless, bandwagon-hopping attack dog like John Canzano piling on Yao when he's down is enough to make me ill.

Still, it's like President Lyndon Johnson famously said when asked why he didn't fire J. Edgar Hoover: "Better to have him inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in." At least, for the moment, Canzano is Houston's problem, not Portland's.

That was depressing, but it was just Game 1

hurryup09 — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 06:46:01 -0000

True, that was a bummer. But in some ways a blowout loss is better than a one-point heartbreaker. Realistically, the youngsters had to get initiated into playoff basketball, and now they have been. Contrary to what the ESPN announcers were saying, tonight's result was not a shock. Or at least it shouldn't have been. "The physical, playoff-tested veteran team kicks the youngsters' butts in Game 1." Nothing new about that story.

And here's how the next chapter generally goes. First, the national media all jump off the flavor-of-the-week team's bandwagon. Even locally, many fans bail. But the veteran team relaxes slightly in Game 2, feeling that now, having "taken home court advantage," they're in the drivers' seat. Meanwhile, the youngsters regroup, their coach makes adjustments (e.g., shortening the rotation and fronting Yao), and the team comes out with a focused, determined effort in Game 2. No more "deer in the headlights"; they probably win going away.

After that, though, the story of this series is hard to predict. The Blazers have serious problems matching up with the Rockets, and now they have to win a game in Houston--as well as the rest of their home games. Still, if the Rockets do relax enough to lose Game 2, they may be in trouble. That's because what "home court advantage" in the playoffs is truly about is the right to play a Game 7 at home. Losing an early game at home isn't that big a deal if you're talented enough to win one on the other team's floor, and I think the Blazers are. Conversely, it's almost impossible to win a Game 7 on the road. (Mainly because of home cooking, in my opinion.)

So this idea that the Blazers have now "lost home court advantage" is really a misconception. If the Blazers win Game 2, their whole psychology will change, and they'll likely go into Houston and win one. They won't be playoff newbies anymore; the nerves and shock at the physicality of playoff basketball will have worn off. And they'll still have the huge advantage that home court in a Game 7 brings.

Still, there's those pesky matchup problems. The Blazers couldn't deal with the Rockets' physicality during the regular season. So how are they going to do so in the playoffs, when officials allow more aggressiveness? While I still think the Blazers will defy the new overnight media consensus by making this a series, they probably will need another year of maturation--and the addition of a "Maxsap" or two--before they can make a serious playoff run. No worries; this team (unlike the suddenly over-the-hill Celtics) is built for the long haul.