No, it was Stotts fault for having such a rigid lineup, aren't you listening to Handiman? I mean really, he played Biebs and CJ for 30+ minutes in the last 2 games just like he did all season... the rigid Bastard! Oh, wait....
Yeah some of the Stotts hate is ridiculous. He pulls the struggling starters after 3 minutes I'd call that making a big adjustment.
Exactly this... Don't get me wrong, I was frustrated with the outcome, but my frustration lies with 4 players that didn't do what they've done all season. Stotts did his best to adjust because the players he usually counted on weren't doing their jobs. The blame lies with Aldridge, Dame, Batum and Lopez. I gave Afflalo a pass because he was injured. I give Dame and Aldridge a sort of pass because the first 2 games, we had to force feed Aldridge because no one showed up. I gave Dame a semi pass because he finally showed up in the last 2 games, but that was too little too late.
Obviously you haven't watched the games all season. Stotts Absolutely changed his rotations during the series. Mags pointed it out already. There were no rigid substitution patterns. From game to game it changed. Stotts hate is not justified. Lets look at it from another prospective. Lets say all of you are business owners of a 12 man crew ( Small company, I know). You are the owner, manager, president.. the one making the calls. You have 5 guys that are extremely skilled in their positions( A press operator, a shipping manager, a helper/grunt, a machine operator, and a sales rep). You have 7 more guys that aren't as skilled, but between them can provide fills for an employee who might be sick. So now your press operator gets sick and you move things around to fill in the absence. Yes the fill in is not as skilled, but can still operate, just a bit slower. Now our production is not optimal and we are pumping out as many parts per hour as we had scheduled, putting us behind. Now have that happen to 4 of the 5 go to guys off and on throughout the year. I don't care what changes you trey to make as the leader, you are not going to have the same output as when your employers are good and healthy. For anyone to think that if Stotts would have done this or that and we would have had more wins, or wont the first round, are simply ignorant to all of the X factors. This one can be put to rest because its fairly obvious the ones who want Stotts to go have no idea how a group of skilled men need to work together and how easily it can derail when speed bumps show up. The ONLY thing I say Stotts failed at this year was not benching Lillard for rest. He should have played 75 games max and his exhaustion at the end of the season showed it. Other than that failure, I think he did about as good as anyone could considering all the crap he had tossed at him this year with injuries.
Some of you are giving credit to Olshey for drafting Dame, Meyers and CJ but some credit should go to Stotts and his coaching staff for developing them. Especially Meyers and CJ, both were raw as fuck and many of you doubted their value as NBA players. A huge amount of credit for their performances in the playoffs should go to the coaching staff.
I think we deserve credit for their development. Clearly our criticism spurred them to improve. barfo
I love on here that we get both complaints of rigid substitution patterns as well as random substitution patterns and guys getting yanked in and out of the rotation where they don't know their role. hmmm
I don't think it caused him to start Crabbe one game, CJ another game, Kaman another, Meyers another, etc...he shuffled the bench into the starting substitutions in a very competitive way. Actually pretty unusual approach but it gave him what he needed as far as evaluation.
Exactly, when the team loses you can second guess every decision. The biggest problems with this team entering the season was defense and bench production. We had a top5 defense much of the year and key bench contributions throughout the year from Kaman, CJ, Meyers, and Blake. I think we were undefeated when Crabbe started in the regular season. Stotts gets praise from me for correcting the biggest problems. Its as if some fans expect the Blazers to win every game by 20. We got destroyed in these playoffs and injuries were obviously the biggest reason. Maybe different coaching would have got us one more win but no way any coach gets this group contending this year.
20 plus diferent lineups is one thing but do you realize he also used 4 different lineups in the Playoffs?
He couldn't take them off the court once it was clear they were the only ones consistently producing, but he stuck to the ineffective patterns at the start of each half and dug the team too big of a hole. There was no excuse for sticking to those patterns in game 5 after how night and day the lineups were in game 4. That's piss poor game management.
