That was not the point and the Cav announcers didn't get it either. Cleveland shot everything deep. So not much opportunity to foul. We got screwed by flops by multiple flopa. Bayless got called for another push off while James and Williams did the same thing. Roy was not fouled every time he drove to the basket, but many of the crucial ones. The one thing that does piss me off about our boys..........get a freakin lose ball. Go after it when it is on the floor. Dive on the floor. We get like 10% of the lose balls.
that is true. it also is true that the cavs got away with a lot of contact and had some bad foul calls against the blazers go in their favor as well.
Yea if there is one thing I really wish the league would get away from is for rewarding floppers. I am starting to lose hope that Greg will ever get to be an effective player because of how the league is calling things now. Guys getting offensive fouls called on them because the guy guarding them has an affro that flies around wildly and greatly exaggerates the contact is just flat out sickening to watch.
You have to be kidding me. Like Steve Blake has been doing a good job defensivly, on anybody this year? Top it off with the fact that Williams can score on any point guard he wants pretty much, makes it more of a laugher. The best way to take Williams out of the game, would have been for Nate to actually pull his head out of his ass, and figure out that Bayless had Williams with 5 fouls with 5 minutes left in the 4th quarter, and that Bayless had got him to committ fouls the last 3 times he challenged him, and ran a play right at him and got him out of the game. That is how you stop Mo Williams. Not Steve "Pinch me i'm in the NBA" Blake.
You honestly don't think Blake would have been an improvement on the Sergio and Bayless? You think he might have managed more than their combined 5 assists in 48 minutes? Perhaps hit a three ball or two that forces Cleveland to come out on our guards? That's insane to argue.
It was simply the Cavs night tonight and not ours. You can tell just by the bounces. Every time they missed it seemed like the bal goes out off of us or they get a timely offensive rebound and scored. Roy missed 2 easy lay-ins, Sergio missed a 3 foot bank shot, and Roy got screwed out of a 3 pt play to end the 1st or 2nd quarter. They were simply not missing from 3 and LeBron was locked in from the perimeter (I believe only 8 or so points were scored inside 15 feet..). That's exactly where you want him shooting too because he is no Ray Allen out there, he was just in one of his "zones". Next game he'll prolly go 7-18 from the outside. It didn't help that Mo was unconscious as well. yes I know we shot more free throws than them, but shit, can we buy a flop? Varejo was flopping all over the damn court and it cost Oden a few fouls. And how in the hell does a point guard foul out? Finally, please call more than one travel on Bron..he's taking a walk in the park all game long. To end, we just are not that good. We may sneak into the playoffs, but this is a team we should have handled at home. I don't know what's up with us right now, bu its like we've hit a wall. We have a very easy month and we can't get any type of momentum going. Very frustrating.
Point guard play wasn't really the problem tonight. Williams got open because guys had to give so much attention to Lebron in a futile attempt to double him or trap him ... especially late in the game when he was playing point-forward. Bayless got called for some very ticky tack fouls, but generally stayed right with Mo, and usually had a hand up to try and bother his shot, Sergio did an OK job at times, but got burned a couple of times by going under picks early in the game. Regardless, Mo Williams is a dead eye shooter and he was smoking hot tonight. Everybody seems intent on placing blame for the loss, instead of giving credit. It's not a fluke that the Cavs are at the top of the league -- they are legitimate win-it-all contenders, while the Blazers are still pretty damn young and have a lot of lumps to take before we can say the same.
They are one of the best teams in the NBA. We were not expected to win this game, and definitely not handle it.
THIS is my biggest issue with the team so far this season. Why are they so out of position when defending threes??? It boggles my mind sometimes. I'm not sure if it's because we're giving help on players like LeBron or what, but other teams will swing the ball and we almost always have a guy or two getting stopped by a pick and leaving someone WIDE OPEN! They had better figure this out!
I get being burned once, but Mo Williams was on fire all night. No reason to get him get any open looks over and over again.
LeBron was slick. He set-up the Blazers....drawing them to him...then dishing to Mo "just" at the right time. Of course, this strategy wouldn't have been nearly effective had James not been hitting all those big-time outside shots.....with guys in his face. James is, well, King James.
Mo got a lot of his shots off screens around the 3-point line. The guards went under and he stuck the shots. We got to fight through those when dudes are on fire like Mo was.
That's very true. With that, Bayless was inhibited by quick, sometimes ticky-tack, whistles last night. He just couldn't get it going until the latter parts of the game (of course, being planted on the bench didn't help). Even then, I wonder if he was a bit gun-shy on the defensive side of the ball.
I agree with this. Bayless does a much better job at defending the perimeter than Sergio. I think Sergio is just too weak or something. The thing that irritates me though is that this poor perimeter defense has been going on ALL SEASON! I think Nate and the staff need to raise the priority of this.
I'll take that crazy haired sissy boy on my team anytime. I'd like to see our guys play as hard and with as much intensity as Varejao.
That was a pretty BS call, and had the RG booing as loud as I could remember for quite a few minutes after that call. Oh well. Cleveland played great, and we played well ... at times. They could very well be the best team in the NBA, especially when they get Z and Delonte back. They've got a ton of weapons.
Varejao should have fouled out in the first half. He slapped, Greg and Joel many times and it went uncalled. He stayed in the game going over the back on our centers the whole game on rebounds. Then he's rewarded for flopping on the other end. Sorry, if I'm Nate I run a play just for Greg and make Varejao honest for the rest of the game. Foul our not Varejao needs to be planted on his ass to set a tone for the rest of the game. The Cavs beat up on us physically cause Nate "the great defensive coach" he is, allowed his players to look whimpy out there. Run a fucking low post play for Oden and let him explode on Varejao and how about setting some hard picks so the Cavs don't think they can push us around on our court! Roy was getting assaulted. If the refs aren't calling anything for our allstar you make a point. You don't sit around like NATE does and let the tone get set for the whole game. One hard foul would have made the refs have to take notice and calm it down on both sides.
Whenever LeBron is on the court it's almost like the Cavs have 6 players. He's so strong, smart, fast and versatile....what can you say? He's the best player on the planet. Every time he took a breather, Portland would charge back from behind and get a little lead. He'd come back in and basically mash us down again. They just had to keep it a little close, and in the fourth quarter it was LeBron's game to lose. What did I take away from this game? Not that Oden is inconsistent or that we really miss Blake or any of that. What I took away is that if we want to beat them in the Finals (where I think we'll eventually meet in the coming years) we'd better have a lot better options on defense than just Batum and Outlaw/Webster/Roy. Batum is improving, but he's not going to do it on his own. Roy needs to save some of his energy for the offensive end. Outlaw and Webster are helpless against his strength and speed. None of our true small forwards are going to force LeBron to expend energy on defense. The Cavs game was The Defining Argument for a consolidation trade that nets us a really high quality small forward. Without such a trade, we're fucked against LeBron and Kobe.
