Is Jerryd Bayless the shot in the arm the Blazers need?

 

McMillan was none too pleased with Sergio Rodriguez during the Christmas night loss to Dallas. Sure, Sergio finished 4-for-4 from the field and had a nice backdoor pass to Rudy Fernandez, but McMillan played him only 2:05 of the second half. I asked him Friday why.

"Defense,'' McMillan said, a little more than a touch of disgust in his voice.

"Yeah, the pick-and-roll ...'' I said, noting the Blazers' team-wide problem that night. But before I could finish, McMillan was already shaking his head.

"No, just defense period,'' McMillan said. "He has to play better defense.''

 

This pisses me off so much I can't even think straight. The game against Dallas featured some of the worst defense we've seen from the team in some time, but to call out Sergio is just ridiculous. I watched Sergio's D very closely in that game and his defense was questionable on no more than 3 plays—outside of that he stayed in front of his man and made the proper rotations. Barea didn't make a single play against Sergio, but with Sergio on the bench looked like Michael Jordan against Blake and the starters. Yes, Terry beat Sergio off the dribble a couple times to make plays. But there was soooo much worse going on that court on xmas.

Why Nate would publicly eviscerate Sergio's defense after this game to justify himself for not getting him time in a game where he was performing very well, is just totally beyond me. It seems clear to me, that regardless of the effect, Sergio is giving 100% on D and improving.

I'll never understand the relationship between Nate and Sergio.

Update:

BrianfromWA made a comment on O-live that runs through Sergio's actual performance on Xmas. I thought it'd be helpful to have it up here for people who are commenting from imperfect recollections (as I myself was):

 

Why are you bringing up single-game +/- as a personal stat? Let's dig a bit, shall we?
Sergio comes in at 3:21 left in the first. 24-18 Mavs. He's guarding Kidd for 2 minutes, then Barea comes in at :48. Neither one scores or gets an assist for the rest of the first quarter, and we cut from a 6pt lead to a 4pt lead. Sergio has a 3, the amazing assist to Rudy, a layup and sets up Joel for his 2 FTs. So how does he have a bad rating ?
Then, to start the second, Sergio again scores a layup. Then another one. Then the man he's guarding gets the first points or assists in 7 minutes of play when Barea gets a rebound and layup. Sergio then comes out. We're now down 43-33. How can that be? Well, I'm glad you asked. I know Sergio is the whipping boy right now, but perhaps Nate should rethink his idea of having Frye and Outlaw out there at the forward spots at the same time. B/c here's what happened for Dallas around those timeframes...2FTs by Terry, Howard 3, Nowitzki 2, 2 buckets by Singleton, a Wright 3. AND: Travis 0-3, Frye 0-1, Rudy 1-2, Joel Travel, Sergio Bad Pass. But I'm sure it's all the fault of Sergio and his disgusting defense.

FFwd to the 4th quarter. 80-77 good guys, Sergio comes in, immediately commits the foul on Barea. Then Rudy is 0-1, Travis 0-1, Roy 0-2. Meanwhile, DAL goes miss by Terry, miss by Barea (Sergio's guy), make by Nowitzki, make by Bass. Sergio leaves with it 81-80 them.

So to recap: when Sergio was in the game he was 4-4, 9pts, 1 turnover. The man he was guarding was 1-4 with 0 assists. His teammates were 1-10, 2-4 FTs and 1 turnover, while the other team (aside from Sergio's man) were 6-12. Must've been Sergio's disgusting defense. Couldn't be that teammates were missing shots, getting lit up on their own by leaving their men open (and I'm looking at you, Rudy, Travis and Frye).

 

Henry Abbot just posted a nice little story about the world beginning to believe the Blazers are less the lucky hosts of the much-desired shot fairy and more just a solid basketball team. I think we're all beginning to believe. Last night was a great gutsy win for this team. and 15 wins in the last 16 games sounds sooooo nice.

http://myespn.go.com/blogs/truehoop/0-29-9/Ain-t-No-Fairy.html

There is an article about Outlaw on the front page of Yahoo's NBA page:
http://sports.yahoo.com/nba
http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_ylt=AiW.7siIHcs5APdp5jGsm4a8vLYF?slug=aw-outlaw121807&prov=yho o&type=lgns

It's funny how a little 8 game winning streak can get you some national media attention.

maybe if we add 8 more reasons to the streak Outlaw can get people to put his real photo up and remember his name.

The Blazers win streak, mostly against playoff teams, is getting us some much deserved respect. With this mornings newest Power Rankings by Stein at ESPN, the Blazers come in at #10. 10!, in the whole NBA. Last week we were 20, and the week before I think we were around 25. That's some serious moving up. It's always fun to watch the national media figure out something we've known for awhile. ;)

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/powerranking

There are four audio clips of Sergio at Media Day over at the Oregonian, http://blog.oregonlive.com/blazers/2007/10/listen_up_2.html.

On thing that is clear right off the bat is that his english has improved--a remarkable improvement in understanding it and a decent but not spectacular improvement in speaking. At some point the interviewers even compliment him on his improved english skills.

The other info from the interviews that i found interesting is he doesn't seem at all deterred by the things Nate has said, and says his plan is to go in and play hard and earn a spot.

Also, when asked what parts of his game he wanted to work on, he said he wanted to improve all aspects,and  when pressed for details he said, in this order: 1) defense, 2) shooting, 3) less turnovers. from his lips to god's ears, i say! he definitely gave the right answer, let's hope he really does improve all that stuff.

Turns out there will be a NBA players vs. Yao and China's national team charity game on Sept. 14th in Beijing. Of particular interest for us Blazers fans is that Greg Oden will be part of the US team. Read about it here:

http://myespn.go.com/blogs/truehoop/0-27-130/Steve-Nash-and-Yao-Ming--Making-Something-Happen.html

I see this as great for two reasons: 1) Even before he's played a single NBA game, Oden has already gotten involved with a huge charity project and it shows what a great guy he is, and that he really is going to fit well in the new Blazer culture,  and 2) Regardless of the less-than-game-time level of intensity that will be played it will still be fun to see GO go up against Yao, and also will help him get a little experience against an NBA all-star center without the super-high expectations that will hound him even in pre-season games.

Tickets went on sale this morning, you can get them from http://www.unlvtickets.com/eventinfo.php?tag=e&eventId=34, and more specifically, http://ev2.evenue.net/cgi-bin/ncommerce3/SEGetEventList?groupCode=TMC&linkID=unlv

General Admission is $25, plus for two tickets I had an 'event charge' of $5.75 and then at checkout (with four tickets) there was a 'service charge' of $3.75 (crooks!).

They list a Courtside option in addition to the General Admission tickets for $75, but they are not available. Either all sold out or never really existed--I called their phone number and was told that none were available.

Tickets are good for all games on that day, at both venues.

I got tickets for the 14th and 15th, only games that are back to back, plus 15th is vs. Seattle, so in all likelihood it'll be a Durant vs. Oden showdown. woohoo!