This franchise owes Dame everything to give him a second star for the rest of his prime

I do think this team is slightly better than Denver without Murray. I do not think the Denver role players are getting way easier looks than Portland, but I think guys like Rivers/Morris haved made shots while CJ and others have been worse in executing their equal, if not better looks.

Yes, our defense still stinks, that shouldn't be a major surprise.

 

speaking of Corner Three's, in the regular season:

* on offense, Portland was 29th in the NBA in percentage of corner 3's attempted vs all 3's (15.9%). And they were 16th in percentage made (39.3%)

* on defense, Portland was 24th in rate of corner three's allowed (24.5%). And they were 28th in FG% allowed (42.6%)

Meanwhile, Denver was 3rd in the NBA in FG% on corner three's at 42.9%. So yeah, Portland is vulnerable defensively on corner 3's, and Denver is a bad matchup for that vulnerability

 

I always appreciate how respectful you are and how well you back up your opinions. I enjoy our conversations and disagreements! Maybe next year we'll be able to agree on a coach, that'd be pretty dope too.

As far as the 2nd OT, I haven't watched it back. Too painful. But if all we ran was Dame into a handoff on one possession when we knew he'd get trapped, that's kinda my point. When I watch Golden State and Curry is hot they use him off the ball in a way that either gets him more looks, or makes the defense overcommit to stop it which opens up role players for great looks, including cuts towards the rim. This isn't dependent upon having a Draymond or a Klay out there, and a lot of times I see Draymond make passes to a cutter or a shooter that I think any NBA player could make. That's why it pisses me off when Dame's on fire and he's just standing on the other side of the court being faceguarded and we're not doing anything for him outside of a handoff into a trap.

Dame said he wasn't that gassed but he might've been. But we've consistently struggled to utilize him properly off the ball so it's just a continuation of the same for me.

I'm also not saying to NOT run pick n roll, or that it wouldn't work at all. Your point about play that got RoCo a dunk chance that he missed is a testament to that. But we can fall back into that with the shot clock winding down after we run some good offensive action that gives us a better chance at getting Dame a clean look or get the defense scrambling to take him away which we then exploit with the proper passes and cuts (i.e. ball & player movement).

My main frustration though is how scattershot and random our help-defense and recoveries are behind the point of attack. I don't know if you heard us talk about that but that's the main thing that lost us the game. Our off-ball fall-off on defense correlates with DVP leaving. Stotts has no idea how to coach it.

As far as the lack of effort, I felt like they weren't busting their ass through screens or attacking rebounds as hard as they could. Also felt like they could've done a better job running back in transition, I can't remember how much that led to points for Denver to be honest so it may not of killed them but the overall feel defensive and on the boards for me was these guys aren't going balls to the wall... Offensively, they weren't making an effort to attack or get cleaner looks and were settling for a lot of contested 3s. Maybe that falls under execution but it just seemed lazy. Sure, we missed a couple looks inside but it seemed like this team was not as mentally engaged as they should've been off the bat and I figured that was going to be the case going in.

 

I have my issues with the point of attack defense and rotations as well, but I struggle to put that all on Stotts and give the credit to David Vanterpool for our past successes.

He's done shit for Minnesota's defense and our fall off is also tied to Nurk and Zach's injuries and the downgrade in defensive talent off the bench in favor of more offensively oriented players.

During the regular season we were in the 81st percentile defensively with Nurk on floor, 19th with him off.

That trend has continued in the playoffs to even a greater extent.

A defensive rating of 108.3 with him on the floor (-7.3 vs playoff avg.) And a 145.4! with him off.

 

That's because Nurkic can guard Jokic 1v1. When it comes to providing help or knowing where to position off the ball, or how to rotate out to shooters, we're completely lost. That should not be the case and makes the gap look even larger than it is. Yes, having better defensive personnel helps, but...

I've seen guys overhelp one-pass away far too much. I've seen us go under screens against an on-fire Monte Morris seemingly by design. I've seem guys seem confused on who's supposed to help and who's supposed to take the first knock-out pass. I've seen bigs fail to take away Jokic's post moves going baseline, which he loves, when the help is towards the middle. I seen Stotts try to play RoCo and Kanter in 1v1 coverage with no help against Jokic even though it gets burnt constantly. I've seen far too much of us switching into mismatches defensively this series too. I've seen him decide to play Kanter against Paul Millsap and JaMychal Green. I've seen RHJ play when it should actually be DJJ. There hasn't been a single positive adjustment on the defensive end. I think that's all on Stotts. Nurkic having a good defensive rating and bench personnel arent responsible for any of those coaching mistakes, in my opinion. They're not being coached properly on the defensive end. This is all stuff that a Tom Thibodeau would clean up.

 

Yeah Tom always been good at teaching the little things defensively. He also had a struggles against Atlanta with lack of adjustments on his pick and roll coverage on Trae.

We've gotten burnt by the soft help on Jokic. I understand the philosophy in showing a body to a guy like that and trying to bait him into a kick out pass on a short closeout but credit their shooters they've made us pay.

I also haven't loved the decision to put Roco on Jokic over Melo when we go small. Yeah he
has shown a knack for getting deflections and being pretty good at fronting the post and then getting back behind, but if we are going to double anyway, I'd rather have the bigger body just play behind and free up our best help defender by far to make an impact that way.

Yes the Morris unders were by design. I think the objective there is to allow Nurkic to stay connected to Jokic in pick and roll and not have to help and recover or bring a third guy into rotate to the pop.

But I don't know man I feel like you can play this game with every coach in the league. If we are on the other side of things we fucking hate Mike Malone's late game decisions on how he guarded Dame and the numerous breakdowns they had in the 4th and in the overtimes. There were too many count.

Looking back over your post, we definitely both agree on the lineup and rotation decisions. I've had my issues with them all year. Its the the big thing I worried about with this roster coming into the year, and it's played out like I thought it would unfortunately.

 

Thib's better become more balanced or he's down the road after next year.

 

That certainly confirms what we have been seeing on the court all season. Not enough defensive attention to corner three shooters. Seems easily correctable but for some reason never was.

 

I don't get it. People have this idea that "X is a great player so X DESERVES a championship" but at the same time get all mad when players ALSO believe it and so you get the Heatles or the current Nets.

Fortunately, Dame seems to get that it's enough to be the best player you can be and let the chips fall where they may.

 

Yeah you're the only one

 

If I was Lillard I would be irritated as fuck at my teammates. He pulls the team out of a 20 pt deficit. Carries them on his back to 2 overtime’s.

Kanter’s put back was the only thing they could get from the rest of the guys. Carmelo fumbles the ball out of bounds, Covington blows a dunk and CJ steps out of bounds all to seal a Blazer loss.

 

4:24.0 N. Powell misses 3-pt jump shot from 24 ft 121-124
4:22.0 Offensive rebound by D. Lillard 121-124
4:19.0 C. McCollum misses 3-pt jump shot from 26 ft 121-124
4:17.0 Offensive rebound by E. Kanter 121-124
4:15.0 E. Kanter makes 2-pt jump shot from 3 ft 123-124
3:33.0 C. McCollum misses 3-pt jump shot from 26 ft 123-126
2:49.0 Personal foul by M. Porter (drawn by D. Lillard) 123-129
2:42.0 R. Covington misses 3-pt jump shot from 28 ft 123-129
2:39.0 Offensive rebound by Team 123-129
2:37.0 D. Lillard misses 3-pt jump shot from 23 ft 123-129
2:11.0 D. Lillard makes 2-pt layup from 3 ft 125-132
2:11.0 Shooting foul by A. Rivers (drawn by D. Lillard) 125-132
2:11.0 D. Lillard makes free throw 1 of 1 126-132
1:40.0 C. Anthony misses 3-pt jump shot from 27 ft 126-134
1:33.0 Offensive rebound by R. Covington 126-134
1:33.0 R. Covington misses 2-pt dunk at rim 126-134
1:00.0 D. Lillard makes 3-pt jump shot from 31 ft (assist by C. Anthony) 129-134
0:29.0 Defensive rebound by D. Lillard 129-134
0:23.0 D. Lillard makes 3-pt jump shot from 29 ft 132-134
0:14.0 Defensive rebound by R. Covington 132-135
0:06.0 D. Lillard makes 3-pt jump shot from 26 ft 135-135
End of 1st overtime

4:29.0 D. Lillard makes 2-pt layup from 2 ft 137-135
3:47.0 D. Lillard makes 3-pt jump shot from 31 ft 140-138
3:02.0 D. Lillard misses 3-pt jump shot from 32 ft 140-140
2:38.0 Defensive rebound by D. Lillard 140-140
2:35.0 N. Powell misses 2-pt layup from 3 ft (block by A. Gordon) 140-140
2:35.0 Offensive rebound by Team 140-140
2:27.0 C. McCollum misses 2-pt layup from 7 ft 140-140
2:25.0 Offensive rebound by Team 140-140
2:14.0 C. McCollum misses 2-pt jump shot from 19 ft 140-140
0:41.0 R. Covington misses 2-pt dunk from 2 ft 140-143
0:17.0 Defensive rebound by R. Covington 140-143
0:10.0 Turnover by C. McCollum (step out of bounds) 140-143
0:08.0 140-145
0:06.0 C. McCollum misses 3-pt jump shot from 26 ft 140-145
0:00.0 A. Simons misses 3-pt jump shot from 29 ft 140-147
End of 2nd overtime

 

Circling back to the original point of the thread, what stars will most likely be available after this season?

Paul George?
Butler?
Sabonis?
DeRozan? (free agent)
Kawhi is a free agent, right?

If we're looking to make a trade, what resources do we realistically have to offer?
CJ
Simons
Little
DJJ (if he doesn't opt out)
Nurk

Honestly, the only players I would really like to see on our team next year are:
Dame
Norm
RoCo

 

So we're just forgetting the fact that the Blazers blew out the Nuggets in the previous game with Dame shooting 1-10? Let's be glad you're NOT Lillard, who, I hope, has a more enlightened view.

 

It's a good thing the game is about more than just scoring, right?

Or are you just forgetting the fact that Dame almost had a triple double in that game?

 

Nice. Now do the fourth quarter of Blazers-Lakers, 2000 playoffs, for the full sadomasochistic experience.

 

Easiest way to do that is to trade him. "If you truly love something, let it go."

 

IIRC, I'd have to include the last 30 seconds of the 3rd Q too....however long it took to include Brian Shaw's 30' bank shot

 

Haha Rasta has me on ignore

 

you have been a big advocate of posting +/-

guess which Blazer had the highest +/- in that game 4