This reminds me of when McMillan did the same thing to Andre Miller. McMillan lasted about a year more. http://www.sportstwo.com/posts/2225193/
It is more than just that Stotts sat the most efficient starter last night. It's that because of his brilliant defensive philosophy, Ed Davis ended up 20+' from the basket over and over again. Did Stotts then adjust that? Did he have them fight through the screen? Did he hedge against a guy that isn't a great passer? Did he do ANYTHING AT ALL to help give his player/team a better chance to succeed? On top of that, it is a passive, reactive way of coaching. Instead of making them have to deal with Nurkic (who only had 1 foul and 0 turnovers), he basically surrenders and takes our most effective player on this night out so that....(now think about this) we can match up with one of the worst teams in the NBA. There are many things that I've disagreed with over the last few years with Stotts and from day 1, put him in the Mark Helfrich category of being a nice guy who is a good assistant but not a head coach. Last night was almost like he was trying to see how poorly or ineptly he could coach and still keep his job.
The one thing Davis is not great one on one defender especially on smaller guys out on out side the paint. If you was going small like that you play Vonleh not Davis. But then you don't leave your big man on the bench that was having a good scoring night when you was having problem with scoring. The last 2 games he has done the same thing.
Just when I think Stotts can't surprise me anymore with his idiotic moves, he pulls this shit... I'm glad I wasn't able to watch more than the last few minutes of last night's game, or I might have had an aneurysm. I'm not one to usually put too much weight on what Dwight Jaynes says, but on that show following the game he was just beside himself.
I'm not a big Stotts fan. Something from that podcast: "people not moving and ball not moving". And the defensive problems TBpup talks about. And the seeming reluctance to bring in a real big man coach. And what seems to be a lack of accountability for players. As for the decision not to play Nurkic though, I don't know. Stotts wouldn't say it, but the last few possessions by Nurkic, he was not executing well or making good decisions and running ISO's for him seemed to be making our offense stagnant. But, considering our defensive strategy of switching, it seems Davis was not the right guy in there. Wouldn't Vonleh have been a better choice? Then I tried to think what if Harkless was our biggest guy, but who would be the other four? Lillard, McCollum, Turner and who? With Aminu out, what other medium sized guy do we have who can play defense?
I don't care who did or didn't play. If you don't play with effort you don't play in the game. No Portland player showed effort last night. Players and Coaches rightfully deserve some heat. Oh sorry they played with effort for the first 6 minutes of the 4th quarter. You know when the Nets were throwing up airballs, having turnovers... You know things bad teams do when you play defense against them.
Nurk scoring 21 points in 3 quarters isn't "effort" to you? Really? Pray tell....what IS effort, then?
I've read that Vanterpool was apparently yelling at Nurk for not playing drives on defense the way he was supposed to/ playing poor defense for much of the third quarter. And apparently Nurk wasn't listening. Has anyone else seen this being said? If it's true, I can kinda see where Stotts is coming from. The biggest issue I've seen with Nurk is that the dude can start feeling himself and taking bad shots/playing lazy defense. That being said, it seems like something that should be emphasized after the game.
Sure Nurk was having a good offensive game but what was he doing on the other end? I definitely saw some matador defence not just by Nurk but almost everyone on the roster. All comes back down to accountability. Sounds like Vanderpool called out Nurk for his lack of effort on the defensive end. He should be commended for that because the head coach would never do that.
you do that to Nurkic, you better do that to Dame, CJ and rest of the guys no double standards man that shit sounds to me like they expecting only Nurk to play defense, cause he can and cause majority of our players sucks at it, they dont have to do it if you can play defense - we gonna yell at you when youre not playing it right, but if you cant play defense - you get a free pass
Nurk (and Davis) were consistently left on an island against guards. That's either on coaching or our own backcourt.
Who was playing in the 3rd quarter when the Blazers got killed? We actually won the 4th quarter. This reminds me of the Clippers under Bill Fitch when they were threatening the worst record in HISTORY and their "best" player was probably Pooh Richardson. Fitch was so disgusted at the five on the floor that he just picked 5 people off the bench and sent them in and sat EVERYBODY. The team nearly came back to win with guys who probably wouldn't've made the D-League all-stars. It was great. Of course Fitch could do that because he was a crusty old bastard who had zero fucks left to give.
Maybe it would be good to have ONE backcourt starter who's at least half-decent on D? Look at how the Pistons got Avery Bradley and suddenly they're no longer a sad-sack team.
Why didn’t Nurkic play in the fourth? “I thought with their small lineup, I thought defensively we were giving up too much when he was in the game and I liked Ed’s athleticism.” you fucking motherfucker, even so, defense was shit with Ed Davis too, but guess what, Nurk was our best offensive player you dumb fuck, so if were bad in defense with Ed Davis too and he cant score on offense, YOU BRING NURKIC BACK to score some shit on offense and Im pretty sure hed do some shit on defense too, small lineup or whatever, hes youre best defensive player you prick and its not just Ed Davis, Dame & CJ couldnt do shit on offense, so you basically had no offense... god he was out of his depth, or to be exact, he is for the whole season now
You are misreading Stotts. He's saying "Nurkic repeatedly failed to do what we asked on D so I sat his ass down." Of course he knows Nurkic is good on O. But actually, not necessarily better than Davis:
