So what did we learn in this series?

The first thing we should say is: not much, it's only one series against ONE team that we've struggled against for a while. Just as we shouldn't've concluded much from the win against the Rockets or the loss against the Spurs last year.
BUT, here goes:

• Mike Conley is very underrated. Right now he's better than Lillard simply on his defense.
• Wesley is very important to this team
• The Afflalo trade was a mistake. Not just because he got injured - he wasn't doing jack before that. We would've got more CJ after Wes went down without that trade. And maybe some more Will, for good or ill.
• Meyers Leonard would win a three point contest amongst 7-footers
• Meyers Leonard does not wilt in the playoffs
• Meyers Leonard isn't a complete disaster defending Marc Gasol (the most surprising thing of all)
• Batum is our non-scoring point guard (see thread on: the death of)
• Lillard's defensive flaws can be brutally exposed by anybody who can shoot. He needs to find out what Curry did to move from disastrous to mediocre and get on that.
• After all the years of calling players "the next Vinnie Johnson" "Microwave II" - CJ is the real deal!
• Steve Blake's time as a semi-useful NBA player has come to an end
• We may have seen the last of Joel Freeland
• LaMarcus is an underrated defender - just ask Zach Randolph

 

I agree on all your takes. I would like to add that our star players weren't even close to 100%, Matthews was more important to our success than many believe, maybe we should have kept T.Rob?

 

Chris Kaman plays like his nickname
Defensive minded teams win playoff series
Rolo was never the same after his injury

 

Couple things.

Firstly, I think people are way too hard on Afflalo. He never got to really integrate into our system before his injury and a shoulder injury could really hamper his ability to score. He was never supposed to be the starter. He was supposed to provide scoring off the bench. He was thrust into a role that wasn't intended and then he was hurt very quickly after that.

Secondly, there is something going on with Dame's shot, and I don't know what it is. Whether it's an injury, overall fatigue, or just a confidence issue, his shot is completely off right now and that played a large role in our demise. If Dame is hitting his threes, he's better than Conley. I don't think there's any question that he's better than Conley when he's firing on all cylinders.

Lastly, what happened to Robin Lopez? It doesn't look like he can jump at all. Most of those silly slap outs that he was doing were because he couldn't get any elevation to grab a rebound. Is he hurt? He just doesn't look like the same guy at all.

 

Dame is a god-awful defender, I could hardly believe what I was seeing.

When Lillard, LA, and Batum are all shooting poorly, we have no chance.

Batum really needs to be traded, he is such a disappointment.

Leonard is our best Center (wow, did I just say that?) And that's a great thing moving forward.

All said and done, if LA and Lillard at LEAST play average, we would most likely be up 3-2 right now. Very frustrating playoffs to witness.

 

That's the fucking truth. If Lillard and Aldridge play like they did against Houston last year, we win.

 

Answers in bold.

 

Rasta, that was a good list, but it missed one significant item, IMO: Wes Matthews is critical to this team's success. He helps space the floor offensively with his threes and he makes up for Dame's defensive deficiencies.

 

That's just not true. Leonard isn't even a center.

I'm beginning to think we should quickly package Leonard and CJ while their stock is artificially inflated.

 

You said that Afflalo is "exactly what you want coming off the bench"
Um, no. That's CJ. Afflalo is a decent-ish (a bit foul-y) defender who can score a bit (but needs plays run for him) but does NOTHING else. Check out his PER. And I don't mean even for Portland, look it up for this season with Denver. Check his assist numbers and rebounds. They're pitiful.
He's turned out to be one of those players who puts up big scoring numbers on shitty teams. Maybe if we get shittier he'll be more valuable to us.

 

Memphis had a bit to do with how LA and Damian played. I'm going to give LA a pass, though, because he suffocated Zach for the most part, and he put off surgery for us.

This is also why I'm not going to get too high on CJ and Leonard. They were given a lot of room because of the same defensive schemes that were built round stopping LA and Damian. They're Harrison-Barnes-against-San-Antonio-when-they-hid-Tony-Parker-on-him.

 

Leonard can defend traditional centers. We saw that this series. "Not a total disaster" to one person actually works out to "best DRtg on the team" in real world numbers. He's also the best all-around shooter we have. Regular season number put him Top 3 on the team in all ranges (0-3, 3-10, 10-16, 16-21, 3pt ranges). He achieves this by not jacking up bad shots or even okay shots, but waiting until he has The Right Shot. That doesn't jive with the Stotts method always, but it does mean he's a lock for a good shift when he's out there.

We learned that Leonard gets under the opponent's skin like Joel Przybilla used to. He annoyed the fuck out of Marc Gasol, which gave me the giggles it was so enjoyable.

As much praise as Leonard has been given, I think he's still underrated. He shot 77% from three in a 5 game series. FFS that's enough to make Kyle Korver blush.

 

Leonard had a great series against one team with a center who needed to be sagging off in the paint. Let's trade away the player who turned us from a laughingstock into a top Western team to make way for him! Yeah, that's TACTICS, that is!

 

OK we all know Leonard did well on shooting... He also rebounded very well, and was our most efficient defender, and he was guarding Gasol most his time on the floor. I think a players position is more defined by what position they guard on Defense, by that definition Meyers was our center most the time he was in, because he played with LA, and guarded/was guarded by Gasol.

 

I don't think you go all in on Meyers or CJ at this point, mostly because if we are able to keep Robin and Afflalo and Wes recovers our bench just got very very deep and potent. Let's not forget that most analysts say , and I agree, that our starters can play with anyone, our deficiency has been our bench. What we need is a big PG off the bench.

 

I think people were/are talking about his defense. Rightfully so. He did a good job guarding one the best centers in the league. That deserves some praise.

 

That Blazer fans can be easily and viciously manipulated by Jason Quick.

 

Lol cmon now... If anything those two deserve a lot of floor time next season. Why trade players that you have only given a fair shake to a few times?

 

1. Wes is critical to the success of the team
2. Damian should be called Amian, there is no D.
3. Playing injured, whilst admirable and gives glimpses of promise is merely a band-aid solution and things break down again.
4. Batum. God.... WTF do we do with him?
5. Some of our bench guys have improved a lot.

 

Okay, but I've watched a lot of Blazers games and at no point before this series did I think "you know - that Meyers Leonard - he's a good defender!" So I have to think, for now, this performance is an outlier. Defensive stats are notoriously unreliable, and I can't help but think Memphis's system was not set up to exploit Meyers. He's big, which is a plus (although he seems to have a high center of gravity) so Gasol couldn't just brush him aside, and Gasol isn't going to outrun anyone, but Gasol also tends to operate as a passer in the post as much as anything.
The center's job is predominantly as a "rim protector" not simply a good one-on-one defender. And, other than Roy Hibbert, there are few better rim protectors in the league than Robin Lopez.
Think about it: we're praising Leonard in a series when we were badly beaten. When RoLo was playing well, before the All-Star Break, our defense was league leading.
If I thought RoLo had seriously regressed, and the RoLo of this series was the one we would have from here on out, then I'd look to replace him. But even then, I wouldn't replace him with Meyers. Meyers is a gimmick at this point. He's a poor rebounder and a pretty much useless shot blocker. He's a good weapon to bring off the bench if you want to shake things up a little, or in certain matchups (particularly where the opposing team has a dominant center who likes to camp out in the lane on defense). But if he's your starting center, then you're not making the playoffs.