Chauncey Billups shares his plan to improve Portland Trail Blazers

Discussion in 'Portland Trail Blazers' started by SlyPokerDog, Aug 15, 2021.

  1. GDiama

    GDiama Well-Known Member

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    Somehow the bar has been set so high for Billups that he needs to be magician right from the start.
    This good old Olshey logic using whatever number can make him sell his case. One of the best lineups in the league blah blah blah. Denver wiped the floor with our asses. I ended up hating Stotts but what is being done with Billups is frustrating.
     
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  2. riverman

    riverman Writing Team

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    defense needs choreography...your stats don't counter what I said about having a training camp and not trying to learn together on the road on the fly unable to practice on the road...I know you want to find flaws but I don't think you understand the comparison...and I wasn't talking about Nurk fouling out our poor performance in the Denver series...a lot of that was due to guys who are not here anymore and an out of shape Nurk who hadn't developed chemistry with either Roco or Norm yet....it's all good...you can hang onto your pessimism....for fucks sake if that's your motivation...we all know we dropped the ball in the first round against a Denver team that had role players play better than expected....from that..people should move on...it's this season I see light on the defensive end of the tunnel
     
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  3. riverman

    riverman Writing Team

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    Billups doesn't need to be a magician to implement his game plan on this team....he knows how to achieve success..look at the Clippers two way play last season...the guy isn't searching...he's teaching...I'm real happy he's here
     
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  4. riverman

    riverman Writing Team

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    actually some sites had us at 17th not 18th from mid season...the playoffs probably dropped us to 18
     
  5. illmatic99

    illmatic99 formerly yuyuza1

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    so in the bottom half of the league. gotcha.
     
  6. riverman

    riverman Writing Team

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    Trent was great in the playoff bubble the year before but last season he wasn't great...he had a really long shooting slump..his bubble play got him a contract...not last season's play...we were lucky to get Norm for him in my view...streaky shooter...not good finisher, rebounder or passer ...he will become a 3 and D guy but he's not all that yet...this is my take on him
     
  7. riverman

    riverman Writing Team

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    leap frogged a dozen teams mid season....gotcha...I'll take that considering Melo and Kanter were part of that stat..
     
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  8. andalusian

    andalusian Season - Restarted

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    The reality is that the starting 5 have an excellent defensive rating when playing together under Stotts (which means that it was not coaching, it was roster). The issue was and continues to be that the other combinations were not great. Basically, when you had 3 good defenders next to CJ + Dame - the Blazers can defend very well. The issue is that the team really does not have that many good defenders.

    For example, if you look at the 5 man units that played at least 15 games together and at least 300 minutes - that Blazers starting 5 is 5th overall in the league (that's elite defensive). The issue was always that one of these 3 good defenders went out with Dame + CJ - and the Blazers were in trouble.

    https://www.nba.com/stats/lineups/advanced/?sort=DEF_RATING&dir=-1&Season=2020-21&SeasonType=Regular Season&CF=GP*G*15:MIN*G*300

    Frankly, when the Blazers played with 3 good defenders and 2 good offensive players - they did well, Another line-up that did well for the Blazers was Roco, DJJ, GT3 with Dame and Kanter as well as Roco, DJJ, Nurk + Dame, CJ.

    https://www.nba.com/stats/lineups/advanced/?sort=DEF_RATING&dir=-1&Season=2020-21&SeasonType=Regular Season&TeamID=1610612757&CF=GP*G*10:MIN*G*100

    The problem the Blazers have is that they needed at least 3 good defenders with 2 good offensive players - and the combination of injuries and roster composition really derailed the options for that.

    Now, Billups is already starting with a leg-up on Terry, and that's from the roster composition, taking away EK and Melo will immediatly enhance the Blazers defensively, the only question is - are the replacement - be them Zeller/Snell,Mclemore or Nas/Ant in a bigger role going to be just better or a lot better. That's where the defense of the Blazers can improve - part of it is on coaching, but a lot of it is on the roster.

    I agree. The issue was mostly on the roster. When you gave Terry a roster with capable defenders - the Blazers were capable defenders.

    No disrespect to Chauncy who might become the greatest coach ever - the issue the Blazers had and continue to have is that with 2

    No disrespect - but that lineup was excellent in the playoffs as well. They had an elite defense and offense - they just did not play enough minutes together. The issue is not this lineup - it's the rest of the roster.

    https://www.nba.com/stats/lineups/a...2020-21&SeasonType=Playoffs&TeamID=1610612757
     
    Last edited: Aug 16, 2021
  9. riverman

    riverman Writing Team

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    It's going to be a fun season...I'm looking forward to it!
     
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  10. andalusian

    andalusian Season - Restarted

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    I am willing to bet Terry would have been great with the defensive roster the Clippers had. I like Billups a lot, but what NO told us about the defense was not a roster issue is a Trump level lie. It is nonsense.
     
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  11. riverman

    riverman Writing Team

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    I'm a Terry fan so I think that's true...Terry had a top 10 defense with Rolo, LA, Wes, Dame and Nico....what we need most of all is rotation stability...a real starting core that's healthy and knows how to play together without turning over the ball....that takes chemistry...19 different starting lineups don't help that cause and health is part of that
     
  12. andalusian

    andalusian Season - Restarted

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    Yep, the Blazers had top-10 defense under Terry in 2014/15 and 2017/18 - years the roster had defensive players and not a lot of injuries. It is not a real surprise. It was always the roster.
     
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  13. blazerkor

    blazerkor Well-Known Member

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    Oh, that wasn't an argument of how good Gary was or wasn't. That was me pointing out that the team won a higher percentage of games with him as starter than they did when he wasn't. The team's highest win percent starting lineup last season still wasn't one with CJ and Nurk in it... let alone Norm. You can go ahead and look it up Dame, Gary, DJJ, RoCo and Kanter had the highest win percentage of any of our starting lineups. That's not me saying that Gary, DJJ and Kanter are better, it's more me saying that the more talented pieces do not fit.
     
  14. Wizard Mentor

    Wizard Mentor Wizard Mentor

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    great post.
     
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  15. wizenheimer

    wizenheimer Well-Known Member

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    sorry, not really buying it

    if that unit was so good together on defense, Dame, CJ, and Powell would not have all posted a 126 defensive rating in a series in which the Blazers had a rating of 123.4 with a severely tightened rotation

    Look at minutes played:

    upload_2021-8-16_11-13-16.png

    there just wasn't enough minutes left for others than Dame-CJ-Powell-RoCo where there was enough overlap of bench players to impact the stats adversely. The starters sucked defensively in that series. The starters played 1105 of the 1490 total Blazer minutes in that series. That's 74% of the minutes. Trying to blame the 25% of the minutes not played by starters for the historically bad defense is a huge stretch, IMO

    I'd grant there could be a significant improvement with a new defensive scheme, but there also might not be nearly enough

    another factor is that one component of defense I think is seriously underrated is rebounding. Portland's defensive rebounding rate in the regular season was 77.5%. Against Denver in the playoffs it was 73.5%. Which points at Portland's small ball lineup they will be going with most of the time this season. Last season, RoCo had a rebound rate of 11.1% and Powell had one of 5.1%. Those are exceptionally low rebounding rates from the two forward positions. May have been the worst in the league. So far, it looks like Portland may actually be a worse rebounding team this coming season. Zeller certainly isn't the rebounder Kanter is, and Portland's backup PF's right now are Little and Snell? Yikes!
     
  16. Hoopguru

    Hoopguru Well-Known Member

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    Nurk had the best def w/s ranking 107 of all players.
    CJ 144
    Powell 147
    Cov 229
    Dame 299
    DJ 371
    Kanter 387
    Melo 433
    Simons 452
     
  17. riverman

    riverman Writing Team

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    This is where we'll miss Kanter....he cleaned up alot of Gary's misses...and Hoodies, etc....Enes is an elite offensive rebounder...guy is a machine...shooters will love playin with him because he makes their misses look like assists
     
  18. Hoopguru

    Hoopguru Well-Known Member

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    I don't think Billup's was wrong in stating, team needs to buy into defense and it starts with Dame & CJ. They are two average or below defenders, imo.
     
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  19. wizenheimer

    wizenheimer Well-Known Member

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    what are those numbers?

    if it's anything to do with defense and it shows CJ as 2nd on the team, it's a busted stat
     
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  20. illmatic99

    illmatic99 formerly yuyuza1

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    this is a good find and probably what Neil keeps trying to sell. But it's not a great sample size and has the caveat of being only against ONE team (that too, one that got swept in the subsequent round).

    So if the premise is that our bench was the biggest problem, have we done ANYTHING to address this?

    Kanter --> Zeller is an upgrade, but every other change has been a downgrade. Unless you see a substantial jump from someone like Nas, our bench issues are still there.
     

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