Exclusive How I'd Structure Portland's Offense

No, I said that because he proved me wrong.

 

I mean, he is an asshole... lol.

 

Good post with lots of great ideas. I agree with most of them, but have a more simplified approach.

Yes, yes, yes!!! I've been harping on this for months. Go back to running more Nurk in the high post just like we did during Nurk Fever. It was a thing of beauty.

I quoted both of the items above because they tie in well with my simplified approach. I'll give the punch line first for the TLDR crowd and follow up with my set up material.

C.J. should never be our primary ball handler, not with the first unit and especially not with the second unit. Which based on our offense from last season is pretty much saying the same thing as fewer ISOs for C.J.

For his three seasons as a starter, I noticed a very strong correlation between C.J.'s shooting percentages and how many of his made FGs were assisted. That makes sense for most shooters - they are better off the catch than off the dribble. Give C.J. an open look with his feet set and he's money. We all love the highlight vids of C.J. breaking guys ankles or putting them in the spin cycle, but the fact is in spite of his amazing handles, C.J. shoots much better when he plays off the ball than when he's the primary ball handler.

This very simple graph shows the strong correlation between C.J.'s eFG% and the percentage of total assisted made FGs:



I believe the reasons for this correlation are two fold. First, as mentioned, most shooters shoot better off the catch than off the bounce. Second, fatigue. I believe asking C.J. to be the primary creator for both himself and his teammates when Dame is out of the game wears him down. Tired legs == missed shots. The goal of any defense, against a great scorer, is to make them work for their shots. Our ISO heavy offense does the hard work for them. It's our offense that is making C.J. work too hard for his shots, not the opposing defense

Regarding Turner, I don't like him either, but we're stuck with him. He should not be starting. And for god's sake, can we PLEASE remove the Turner post up from our play book, or if not, can someone please teach Evan Turner the basics of high school physics? If the top half of the ball strikes the bottom half of the rim, the ball has zero chance of going through the basket. God, I got so tired of watch Turner back his man down only to launch a low trajectory missile at the front of the rim that had absolutely no chance of going in.

This ties in with your comments about both Nurk and Turner in the high post, and my simplified approach. Here's our top 5 in assists per game for the last two seasons:

2016-17:


2017-18:


Notice two things:

1) How many assists we got out of the center position in 2016-17. It didn't matter if it was Plumlee or Nurkic, in 2016-17 we got LOT of assists by running our starting center in the high post.
2) How useless Evan Turner is as a starter. His minutes per game remained unchanged, but his assists went down by 1/3.

If we absolutely have to play Turner, play him with the second unit so C.J. can play off the ball more. Frankly, I'd be fine with Baldwin and/or Curry as the primary distributor with the second unit, but as much as we're paying Turner, I think we're stuck with him and stuck seeing him on the floor. Fine, as you say, use him the way BOS used him, because the way POR is using him sucks ass.

I've focused on playing C.J. off the ball more, but I believe C.J.'s regression last season was indicative of the overall problems that led to the team being a distant last in the league in assists. Too damn many ISOs, not enough player and ball movement and not playing to the strengths or our personnel.

Hell, running Nurk in the high post made Noah Vonleh look like a legitimate NBA starter during Nurk Fever. Imagine what he can for for Zach Collins. It also created a LOT of easy scoring opportunities for Moe Harkless (I believe 15 of the assists in that video are easy dunks and lay ups for Moe). All the more reason to start Moe and bring Turner off the bench.

BNM

 

Thanks to you and bones for this thread, lots of good reading.