No. Last year, Nurkic was used at the elbow/high post a lot, where there would be some off-ball action and movement with Nurkic looking to distribute as much as he was trying to make a move. This year, there was no off-ball movement, and not cuts. It's Stotts job to get his players to cut and move well off the ball... If his players aren't listening, then that's a strike against him. Watch this video and pay attention to the off-ball movement on Nurk's assists. We had very little of that this year.
Holiday has 4 fouls not even halfway through the 3rd and he hasn’t been even half as physical as he was against Dame and CJ. Like the Warriors need any help.
I expected a lot of those assists to be to Vonleh, because I remember Nurkic dumping the ball to Vonleh when his man helped on Nurkic. But Nurkic threw assists to Harkless more than any other player. I reckon both Harkless, and Vonleh cut to the rim more than Aminu, and Turner (which makes no sense) who stay on the three point line. Obviously Nurkic's assist line was hurt by Harkless's craptacular first half of the season.
Wow look at that, warriors moving the ball and making their shots and the pelicans don't look so good:
Here's a few things I see. GS, who had been starting McGee so far in the playoffs, didn't really play him in the first half except a meaningless minute. Portland started Nurkic even though there was no defensive role for him against Pelicans. If they were going to play him, I think they would have needed to focus the offense heavily around him, as they did late in the fourth game. According tho the announcers, GS is doubleteaming Davis every play. Should Portland have considered this? Third, I see that GS has been very successful with a play where a guy seems to be setting a screen but then slips to the basket and is free as someone passes to him. This is not a pick and roll play but I think something like Bones has been calling for from Blazers.
Even then, Harkless has started to sit in the corner more. But more basket cuts is something I've been asking for. We didn't have many last year and now we have none. Aminu should be cutting like Vonleh did if his shots not completely dialed in.
I think this game also shows how much better New Orleans played against us because of the confidence we gave them. They had numerous guys playing the best basketball of their lives against us because we let them believe they could. GSW comes out and quickly puts them in their place and all of a sudden guys like Mirotic, Holiday, Clark, and Moore are regressing to their regular season play. We struggled with this all year and it carried into the playoffs, no matter the team we always let guys get in rhythm and play with confidence till we would lose games like Dallas, Brooklyn, Memphis, etc.
Although for those who said we had a bad matchup against Pelicans, there seems to be a lot of truth to that. When you have two really good two-way players like Durant and Green to guard Davis and Mirotic.......... Portland's best two for defending them would have been Aminu and Collins; but they obviously would have a harder time defending and wouldn't come near matching the offense of Durant and Green.
So it's obvious, the Pels blew their wad against the Blazers. I've counted a dozen wide open shots the Pels have missed so far. Holiday can't buy an open look. Davis is awful on both ends. Being destroy by Draybiotch. Only Rondo decided this game was important enough to play tonight. The Pels effort is poor.
