Is be curious if we could see stats when we play teams above .500. I suspect much of our players stats are inflated from pileing on points against crap teams. That's irrelevant in the playoffs though. A player who is worse statistically over 82 games but has a smaller variance when playing winning opponents is much more valuable to win a championship.
The difference in this series isn't random making or missing of shots. The Clippers continuously get much easier shots while we have much harder ones.
This is so not true. We had plenty of open uncontested shots in game two. We just missed them. Unless your talking about where on the court. They get alot more in the paint shots, which are easier.
That's exactly what their defense wants us to do. Our role players are mostly non-shooters. They need to drive and put pressure on the defense to collapse, not take the open shots they're being dared to make. CJ and Dame will make their shots if and when the defense starts chasing the ball.
Exactly. I just did a quick scan of Aminu's game log, because so many people are saying he needs to shoot because he's a 36% shooter. I say percentages be damned - he's not a good shooter, he's a guy who'll make an occasional shot when the team is rolling. Until the last 3 weeks of the season when he went on a mini-tear, he was generally chipping in ONE or TWO 3-pointers per game. For every game that he made THREE+ 3-pointers, there was a game where he went 0-fer. Aminu shooting 3s is NOT what this team needs. Take the occasional open corner 3, but otherwise ATTACK AND PASS.
CJ and Dame will never be competitive in a series playing 2 vs 5 on offense. If the opponent is leaving multiple Blazers wide open we have to shoot open shots. If we need to put different players in the game who can hit those shots; fine. Saying CJ and Dame need to "pressure" the opponent by running into double or triple teams is ridiculous. There isn't any player in the NBA that can do such. LeBron passes to the open man when doubled. Steph Curry passes the ball immediately to the open man when doubled. Well I suppose Westbrook or Durant challenge double teams in the 4th quarter; do you want us to emulate their 4th quarter success?
You've got the cause and effect all effed up, and I never said anything about CJ/Dame being the ones to drive and collapse the defense when doubled/tripled. Yes, our role players need to take and make open shots, but they don't need to settle for the 3-pointers that the defense wants them to take. Finding open mid-range spots on the floor is a lost art, but Stotts' entire defense is based around the idea that that's the shot you should funnel players to, so he should have no problem figuring out how to put his own guys in that position.
The Blazers lose games if the following 2 conditions apply: 1.The Blazers don't make 3 point shots (="fools gold" -Pat Riley). 2.The opponent makes open midrange shots (problematic against Courtney Lee and Beno Udrich, devastating against Crispy Paul and Red-dick). Just think about it, Stotts got a lot of his ideas from Frank Vogel and the Indiana Pacers. Vogel will probably get fired soon and so should Stotts.
_amian and C_ If they can just play to their season averages we're right back in this thing. But one thing is clear - CP3 is showing that he's on a whole different level than Lillard.
