Terry isnt the problem. Its the personnel. we probably have the worst starting front court in the nba. On both ends of the floor. Give it til January. if we're still middling then raise some concern.
Am I the only one who is seeing this? He looks slower and that spring he had in his feet is gone. A ground bound Ed is a negative player.
This is just a mediocre team. We'll win around 41 games. We were mediocre last year, but ended the season with a good flavor in our mouths. But the team hasn't improved from last year. I think a poster here made an interesting observation, when they said it looks like this year's team plays like they think they're better than they are. You don't see the same flair.
So Dame's playing at an MVP level, Turner and Leonard have breakout games, and we still almost lose to Denver, lose to Golden State by 20+ at home, and lose to the winless Pheonix Suns... Offense isn't much of a problem (I'd still change a few things but it's not what worries me). It's the defense, which is horrendous, and the little things like rebounding, knowing when to run, shot selection, consistency, mid-game adjustments when our offense stalls, appropriate double teams, etc.
You guys ready for the mavs when Wes drops 40 on us and our small ass guards get switched onto dirk for his signature fadeaways?...you know it's coming
Oh yeah. Who can forget last year when Stotts put Dame on Dirk. What a brilliant strategy. Worked so well.
Hell, I didn't even bring up how bad and lazy some of our switches are. It's like guards get to lazy to fight through screens so we switch and get killed for it.
I'm ready for wide open 15 footers by good mid-range shooters, and Andrew Bogut killing us on the boards.
Stotts needs to box out better. We got out rebounded by DEN by 16, out rebounded by GSW by 13 and out rebounded by PHO by 6 tonight. We've only out rebounded our opponent one time this season - UTA by 3 on opening night. BNM
Every time I see dame on one of the opposing teams bigs on a switch I cringe. Every time I see the terrible pick and roll defense leading to an open mid by the opposing teams back court, I cringe. It's the same stuff. Every game. We need interior defense and some sort of inside scoring.
Chris Paul loves to play us for this reason. You don't know how many hand gestures I have used when I see cp3 get a screen and comes off of it for the most wide open mid range jumper
Agreed. I hope Olshey makes some trades before the deadline. This cannot sustain this season. We need a Big in that paint, and we need players who have some idea about Defense.
It's what made utahs off season great. Picked up George hill who is great defensively. Joe Johnson, solid vet who can do a bit of everything and diaw. We just dished out checks
I would say, don't be a prisoner of the moment and be wary of drawing conclusions from small sample sizes. That said, this doesn't look like a team that made any meaningful leap from where they were last year. The only difference is that now they're getting paid.
When Olshey hired Stotts, I looked up what his previous teams said about Stotts. They said he's good at offense and bad at defense, so he got fired from a couple of NBA head coaching jobs. When Stotts started here, I saw that his reputation was accurate. But it was fun to watch games now. We moved twice as fast as opponents, who were surprised and lost to our hyper-effort. But by his second season, they caught on, got psyched up for us, and played us with equal energy. Then they started playing that way against other teams. By his third season here, the whole league had copied him, gotten good at it, changed the whole NBA style, and we had no energy advantage anymore. We are shorter than average at every position except maybe SF, but at least we were underpaid, which motivated lean players on contract years. Now we're the most overpaid team, so mentally we're fat. As for physical fat, the coaches had Plumlee and Ed Davis gain weight over the summer. Davis' rebounds per minute dropped from brilliant to only excellent. Plumlee started getting into foul trouble in the first quarter (Phoenix was an exception). The big pay raises of McCollum and Crabbe still live on future potential, not current dependability. Olshey should have let Crabbe and Leonard go. McCollum is no Lillard. Lillard changed for the better. Last season he kept going for layups (actually he was going for just the foul) when he knew he'd be knocked down (but lacked a Chris Paul-like BBIQ to get the foul). This season, he drives to the basket to get 2 points (not the unobtainable foul), so he now chooses his drives for when he actually sees an open lane (amazing concept--allowed me to stop yelling at the TV over those hopeless missed layups/same as turnovers). He has also decreased his hopeless missed 3-pointers, pointless early in the clock, shot because he thinks that making circus shots will psyche up his team and get the crowd into it (that's how he explained them last season). Lillard's posture has become more spider-like. Muggsy Bogues (almost rhymes with "hugs the rugs"), 5 foot 3, used to dribble down the floor looking like a vacuum cleaner. His dribbling fingers were about 4 inches from the floor. No one could dream of stealing the ball. Last season, Tim Frazier played that low on defense. I think that Lillard learned from it. Now Lillard does the same on defense, though not dribbling on offense like Bogues. (Other clinging spiders on defense were Gary Payton and Jamal Wilkes, but they did it upright, not stooping close to the floor like Frazier and now Lillard.) Lillard turns on a dime better, now that he has 3 legs (2 feet plus the fingers touching the floor while he pivots). He doesn't do this all game long, but I hope he will. For now, it's an inconsistent little bonus feature, an occasional sweet treat to see. Every coach and GM eventually gets fired, but change is hard for some posters. Stotts will not live eternally. With Cheeks and McMillan, after some years, I called for them to go, and got the usual comments. ("Who would you replace him with? No list? Alright then. We should keep him forever.") (E-blazer and Shilly, I'm looking at you.) This thread's criticisms are based upon patterns we all saw in both preseason and regular season (predictable objections: "We've only played 4 games." vs. "Oh, you're including preseason? That doesn't count.") I'm nowhere near ready for Stotts to leave, but in a couple of years the process may start, and it will be a big board struggle lasting 2-3 years to finally hustle him out.
this speaks to me and my complaints since last year, I don't know how many times EVERY game I find myself saying out loud "you gotta finish that [enter players name]". We have all these guys that we know can dunk, but just don't for some reason. I get that you cant EVERY time, but they need to more than they currently do.
Really because I thought we picked up a good mid-range scorer who can attack the basket and a defensive rim protector.
Stotts needs to watch how a good defensive team plays, and start having the team play like that. And scrap his own ideas about how the team should play D, because it doesn't work. It just gives the guards way too much room off pick and rolls.
