this place is great...people quote parts of posts then go off on tangents that have almost nothing to do with what was posted when I posted that earlier, it was specifically about the assertion defense was Portland's Achilles heel, rather than Dame being taken out of the equation. Portland got swept in the first round when they had the 8th ranked defense. They made it to the WCF, where they got swept, when they had a defense ranked in the bottom half of the league (16th). defense hasn't really been Portland's ultimate issue in the playoffs. Rather, it's been what happens to Portland's offense when Dame's scoring and playmaking are throttled by a good team
The year we went to the wcf we had to beat good teams to get there. Why posters continually down play any succes this team achieves can be mind boggling.
The beauty of a free-flowing discussion. I have a question about your last statement, but I'm not sure if it's within the context of the original point of this thread.
The overachieving of that WCF run gets downplayed so much and somehow gets spun into another failure. We have not had a top 2 roster heading into the western conference playoffs for 20 years, yet the expectation seems to be that we get that far and win games. This year is no exception.
Yep, another issue is posters tend to get over enamored with end of the bench players that often times don't stick in the league.
Yes, many are harping on that potential type of player as a third string PG this year making some huge difference when its so irrelevant.
