10. Portland Trail Blazers 2016-17 record: 7-4 Previous ranking: 9 The Blazers obviously won't be losing many games when both Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum stay in 30-point territory, which actually happened twice last week. But here's the thing: Do you really want to ask those two to do thatmuch? Fears coming into the season that the Blazers' supporting cast around their backcourt studs isn't quite as good as advertised persist, but then again: Maybe this is the new normal. McCollum has scored 30-plus points in three of his last five outings.
Oops, forgot to include a link. http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/18044512/nba-power-rankings-marc-stein-week-4-rankings
The way the Blazers have been playing, I think that 10th is about right. You can always nitpick about Utah or OKC, but Stein's right that we're getting not much from anybody not wearing the letter O or #3.
But that's basically how our offense is built. Our roster simply isn't built correctly for our personnel. I love Olshey, but Stotts was brought in to appease LaMarcus. He had just won with Dirk, and they brought him in to run a similar offense around LMA. Then LMA left. Now we're stuck with a bunch of shitty replacements for Aldridge, and the offense doesn't run nearly as smooth. We are ball dominant. We don't move the ball nearly enough. We have a bunch of guys that can't shoot (Plumlee, Aminu, Davis, Turner, etc) so there aren't a lot of options for Dame to kick out to. We don't have a good distributor on the second unit. We can't run the same offense around Turner because Turner can't shoot. Half our team is built to run (Turner/Harkless/Aminu) and half our team is built for a pick and roll offense. I think that's why things feel so discombobulated.
I don't disagree with any of this. But I just wanted to point out that we've only added one new player to last season's rotation. And last season our offense was actually better than it was when we had LA. I don't really know what to make of that, other than I do think we played above our talent level last season and I've never been sold on Terry's coaching.
I think we snuck up on people last year, and we're good enough this season to beat bad teams, but we're having a really difficult time beating good teams. It reminds me of when we had Roy and McMillan. It's basically the same offense. The guard dribbles, waits for the pick, and then either tries to score or kicks out. Unfortunately we're learning the same issue that we had with Roy. If the other coach figures out that nobody but Dame is scoring, he just traps on the pick and Dame is forced into either a bad shot or a bad pass. On nights when both Dame and CJ are hot, we're a much harder team to defend because they can't trap Dame, but if CJ is cold........ shit goes south real fast.
Our offense is not the problem with Stotts or Neil. ORTG ratings: 13-14: 3rd 14-15: 9th 15-16: 6th So far, 16-17: 14th But the bigger problem is our 24th ranked defense.
Yeah, and this is why it's important to have an actual playbook rather than a loose offensive philosophy. The only time Terry diagrams a good play is on an in-bounds play - and even then we're just as likely to bungle the whole thing as we are to come up with a nifty basket.
Dude our offense is fine. Terry has sets. You see Dame or CJ or Evan calling out plays all the damn time when they bring the ball up the floor. Instead of old-school sets that end in the same way every time, Terry's offense lets guys read and react through a bunch of options after running the initial action. You watch the games. Pay attention to all the off ball movement that happens when Dame/CJ start the offense. Even if it seems like one on five, it truly is not the case. There's a reason why our guys like Nic/CJ/Aminu/Hark/Dame/etc are always among the leaders in distance run per game. Nearly every NBA media person/coach lauds Terry for his offensive sets. Of all the shit to criticize Terry for, offense is at the bottom of the list.
By and large I think our offense is fine, but that's mostly because we have a couple of pretty amazing offensive players. When push comes to shove, and we're in the middle of a 7 minute scoring drought Terry shits the bed. We have motion for the sake of motion, but running a 3-man weave isn't something I'm going to laud Terry for - I ran that shit in 3rd grade.
Yes, while that weave is happening up top, there is off-ball screening happening down low. As a guide, here's our rankings for distance traveled on offense during Terry's tenure: 13-14: 5th, Spurs #1 14-15: 5th, Spurs #1 15-16: 3rd, Jazz #1, Spurs #2, So far, 16-17: 2nd, Sixers #1. There is so much happening beyond the actual action with the ball here that confuses defenses. The defense is the problem, not the offense. And that largely is due to personnel. We have 0 rim protection, and we have no on-ball defenders.
How much of being ranked 14th is just Dame being unconscious right now? If Dame goes through a cold patch, which he has been known to do, how will our offense look?
TBH, I think our two clunkers vs GSW and LAC are really impacting that ranking. I don't think we are middle of the pack offensively once we get some more sample size. That said, the scary thing about Dame's improvement is that outside of his unbelievable finishing at the rim, everything else looks sustainable. He's drawing more fouls, and this leap is expected given it's his 5th year and his improved health (knock on wood). He's shooting the 3 and the long 2s at about the same % as the rest of his career. His cold patch might not result in a big dropoff as previously given how many FTs he's putting up these days.
Again, I do agree that, for the regular season, our offense is largely fine and defense is the real issue. But I just don't agree that Terry's offense is robust enough when it really matters. Yeah, I know there are flare screen/down screens happening in conjunction with the weave (it'd be a REAL embarrassment if there weren't!). Distance traveled is not a measure of offensive ability or intelligence. Sure, movement is an important aspect of a good offense, but simply having CJ/Crabbe/Harkless run huge circles (which create a lot of distance traveled) hoping to get an open long jumper off a screen isn't a well-designed offense - there needs to be more to it. We need motion going towards the hoop, rather than these huge circles. And again, we so often go through huge scoring droughts, and for someone who is supposedly an offensive genius Terry is usually helpless to stop them.
How much of our 24th ranked defense is as a result of turnovers and transition off poor shots from our 14th-ranked offense?
I'm very happy with how we are doing. Turner had his best game of the year last night and that is why we had one of our more comfortable wins of the season. What was different? Last night, Turner had shifts with both Dame and CJ. It was very effective. We might want to start Turner and see how that goes. As for shooters for CJ and Dame to pass to, we have two of the best in the league in Leonard and Layman. We have a very versatile roster. Don't obsess over our losses to Clippers and Warriors. Cavs struggled to compete with Warriors during regular season last year and then they won the title. The most important thing you have to do to be a contender is beat all the bad teams. I think the #1 seed is still in play.
