After three straight decisive losses (two to inferior opponents at home), the sense of unease among Blazer fans is unmistakable. A team that had just recently (3 games ago) been ranked second in the league in defensive efficiency has now allowed three straight teams to score over 100 points and has fallen to seventh. And an offense that seemed to be clicking on all cylinders just three games ago against Chicago, has seemingly ground to a halt.
Though I too share this growing sense of unease, the rational part of my brain is still not quite ready to panic. With Aldridge out of the lineup tonight, the Blazers were bound to be a bit disjointed and lacking in fire power on offense. And for the third straight game, the other team came out hitting everything from the perimeter. While the Blazers again conceded too many open perimeter shots, on most nights the other team is not going to convert as many of them as Miami did tonight (or Utah did the previous game or Memphis did the game before that). This is the law of averages catching up with us. Regression to the mean. While I don't have the data at my disposal to back this up, my strong suspicion is that the Blazers gave up a similar number of open jump shots in many of the games that they won earlier in the season. Sometimes teams are hot and sometimes they're cold. They were cold early in the season; they've been hot lately.
To me, the more pressing question is how to fix the team's offense. The debate among the Blazer media over the last few days has focused on how to adjust the team's offensive strategy to account for the emergence of Greg Oden as an offensive threat and the acquisition of Andre Miller, a true point guard who is used to running the offense and controlling the ball. Last season, the Blazer starting lineup included three guys -- Joel Przybilla, Nic Batum, and Steve Blake -- who really didn't look to score and did not need the ball in their hands. The offense, by necessity, ran through Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge. It was, for the most part, a two man game. And the Blazers did remarkably well given how one-dimensional they were (at least until the playoffs).
This year, two of the offensive pieces the Blazer faithful have long coveted have finally materialized. We now have a center who is a genuine low post scoring threat and a true point guard who is one of the very best distributors in the NBA. And yet, for reasons that I don't really understand, the coaching staff seems fixated on trying to recreate the offensive strategy from last year.
But that's just not going to happen. Steve Blake and Joel Przybilla had career years last year that they are not likely to replicate. Nic Batum and Travis Outlaw are injured. And more importantly, the Blazers have two very important new offensive weapons, a new starting center (Oden) and a veteran point guard (Miller) who has play-making skills that far surpass anyone else on the team.
It is almost axiomatic that good teams adjust their strategy to fit their personnel. But the Blazers seem determined to adjust their personnel to fit their strategy. That's never a good idea.
Brandon Roy is one best all around players in the league. He does everything pretty well (at least on offense). The last two years, because of the personnel, the team needed Brandon to be both the primary scorer and, for much of the game, the primary ball-handler and play-maker. And he ably filled that role. He had to. He was the best option. But that doesn't necessarily mean that this is the best use of Roy's talents. There are plenty of power forwards in this league who, due to a shortage of big men on their teams, have been forced to play center for long stretches and have done pretty well. Chris Bosh is a good example. But that doesn't mean that Bosh wouldn't be better off playing power forward alongside a true center, like Greg Oden. Just because he's good enough to play center doesn't mean that playing him as one is the best way to utilize his talents.
Just because Brandon Roy has done a solid job shouldering playmaking duties in the past does not mean that he (and the team) would not be better if he played a more traditional off-guard role, at least when he's paired with a player (Miller) who is a better play-maker and distributor than he is. As I noted yesterday, Andre Miller is one of the best distributors in the league. Last year, on Philadelphia, he racked up an astounding number of "super" assists, i.e., assists that lead to dunks or lay-ups for his teammates. And he did so for a team that played at a relatively slow pace, like Portland (Philadelphia had the 9th slowest pace in the league).
I realize it's difficult for players to leave their comfort zones, especially when they've experienced as much success as Brandon Roy already has, but someone needs to sit Roy down and explain to him that, ultimately, he'll be able to score much more easily with the help of a premiere passer than he could ever hope to on his own. If Brandon would just use the same effort in his movement without the ball as he does when he's got the ball in his hands, the sky is the limit. It is much harder to defend off-ball movement than it is to defend a guy dribbling the ball, no matter how skilled that player is. You can move faster, turn easier, and make better use of picks when you don't have to worry about dribbling. And someone as skilled as Brandon is at finishing at the rim, even in heavy traffic, is a passer's dream, a recipe for racking up ungodly assist numbers.
From the moment he arrived in Portland, the knock on Andre Miller has been that his inability to hit threes makes him a liability when he plays alongside Roy. Unlike with Blake, Roy can't drive into traffic and dish the ball to Miller for an open three. But this strikes me as having everything backwards. The reason Roy had to drive so much to the hoop last season was because no one else on the team could, especially Steve Blake. But Miller is aggressive and quite adept at penetrating and driving to the hoop. When he and Roy are in the game together, Miller should generally be the one penetrating and dishing to Roy, not vice versa.
I realize that the Blazers' Hypothetical Perfect Point Guard (HPPG) would be someone who, in addition to being an elite distributor, is also an assassin from long range and a defensive stopper, but get in line. In the meantime, we have a guy who is one of the better passers in the entire league and an excellent dribble-penetrator. Rather than lament that he is not also a great shooter, maybe we should be trying to figure out how best to use this new weapon.
If you look up and down the Blazer roster, you see a bunch of tall, skilled finishers. As I noted yesterday, literally everyone on the team--with the exception of Blake--is capable of dunking an alley-oop pass. That's pretty remarkable. And, among the starters, everyone but Greg Oden is capable of knocking down an open three, and everyone, including the bigs, shoots reasonably well from the foul line. This, too, is a passer's dream, a recipe for a hyper efficient offense.
With all due respect to Steve Blake, there is no question in my mind that Andre Miller should be starting every game and playing at least 30-35 minutes. You want continuity on offense? You want consistency? Well then take the guy who has consistently been one of the best floor generals in the league and let him run your offense. Let him make life easier for everyone else on the court, including your star. It may take a few games, but after a while, everything will start clicking. The other players on the court will learn what kind of passes Miller is capable of making and what kinds of off-ball movement and cuts are most likely to result in a pass and an easy bucket. Before long, Miller will be able to read their body language and know, even before they move, when they're going to cut to the hoop (unlike what happened tonight, when Bayless started to cut and then stopped, hanging Miller out to dry on a perfect lead pass).
I'm obviously not an NBA coach, so take what I have to say with a fistful of salt, but I get the feeling that Nate and his coaching staff are making things much more complicated than they need to be. In the NBA there are very few guys, even among those who officially play the point guard position, who have the court vision and passing skills necessary to run an offense. As a result, most teams have to rely on more complicated offensive strategies and find other ways to make due. But when you have the luxury of having a guy like Andre Miller on your team, it makes life much easier. You can give that guy the ball and let him use his gift, let him read the defense and distribute the ball to his teammates. It requires trust and a willingness to delegate much of the decision-making and play-calling to your point guard, but the payoff can be huge. It's the key to achieving a truly efficient and cohesive offense.
Given the amount of experimenting that has gone on this year (and the team's current level of play), I really don't see how it would hurt the Blazers to at least give this option a try. What have we got to lose? Let Miller be Miller. Put him in the starting lineup, stop calling all the plays from the sidelines, and let's see how our offense looks under the direction of a true point guard.
There's no question that adopting this strategy would force Roy to adjust his game, but Roy is, by far, the player on the team most capable of adjusting his game. Given his abundant talent, there's no reason he can't expand his repertoire to include all the moves necessary to be an elite off-the-ball scorer. He can still be the #1 scoring option without having the ball in his hands all the time. And with the right substitution patterns, Roy can use the time Miller is off the court to be extra aggressive offensively and be the play-maker. At the end of the day, the result will be a better, more complete Brandon Roy and a better, more complete team.
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