http://www.dwightjaynes.com/ least hes being honest about the blazers and not thinking everything is fine after a win. we cant defend to save out lives. he breaks it down nicely. scroll down. also check out his thoughts on pritchard. at this point he will be lucky if other gms answer his calls around trade deadline. he sounds hated and maybe theres good reason for it. he does look arrogant this is what the bucks did last night and on most nights barely run any pick and rolls. its disturbing how bad teh nba thinks we are when defending the pick and roll. 1st Quarter —————- 16 Total High Picks 14 Switches 1 Over/Under Cover 1 Trap 2nd Quarter —————– 8 Total High Picks 7 Switches 1 Over/Under Cover 3rd Quarter —————– 9 Total High Picks 7 Switches 2 Over/Under Cover 4th Quarter —————— 14 Total High Picks 10 Switches 4 Over/Under Covers Totals —————- 47 Total High Picks 38 Switches 8 Over/Under Covers 1 Trap
Actually what I would like to see is for them to break that down as from when Bayless is on the floor compared to other guards. Bayless does the right thing. Most of our guards, do the wrong thing and leave our bigs out to dry.
In the overtime, Charlotte scored on two consecutive dunks (did you see Rudy Fernandez and Joel Przybilla having some heated conversation after the second one?), a wide-open three-pointer and a layup down the stretch, while Portland had nothing but Brandon Roy or Travis Outlaw trying to beat their defenders off the dribble — or pitching it out to Rudy Fernandez for a three-pointer. I know you’re tired of reading this (hell, I’m certainly tired of writing it) but you just can’t play defense this way and have a reasonable chance to win against good teams. With a better defensive scheme — and the same players it has right now – this team would already have three or four extra wins this season. I don’t care what your lineup is or who you trade for or what your offensive philosophy is. Doesn’t matter. You can’t win big in the NBA unless you play better defense than this. And it requires a system, an understanding, of how situations are handled, as a team. This isn’t a breakdown of individual players, it’s a team-wide problem. And until it gets solved, this team is just spinning its wheels.
I've seen in the last few days (maybe it coincides with more Bayless PT) that Bayless fights through just about every pick, and Sergio's trying. He's also doing a lot more of going under the pick rather that just switching.
I call bullshit on this one. Every GM in the league works for an owner who signs the checks. To those owners, the Raef LaFrentz expiring contract is the most valuable trade asset available right now. Not only would it allow a team to dump one or more bad contracts and get under the salary cap and potentially the luxury tax, insurance is picking up the majority of LaFrentz' salary. So, cap relief, luxury tax relief and insurance paying the bill. Depening on the team and the trade, the LaFrentz contract could end up saving some team $40 - $50 million (or more) in cold hard cash over the next few years. If I was an owner and my GM refused to talk to the man who was shopping an asset that could save me tens of millions of dollars, I'd be on the phone looking for a new GM. BNM
MIXUM might be interested to know that Dwight said on the postgame show last night that he expects the Blazers to finish at around 52-53 games and make the playoffs.
This isn't earth-shattering news. We have all been talking about how terrible we are at defending the pick-and-roll. We all see it, and I suspect that people are taking this into consideration when making their "total wins" predictions. Jaynes just quantified what everybody here has been saying. The thing I don't understand is that Nate mentioned that the team is only supposed to switch the pick-and-roll in an "emergency" situation. I have a pretty tough time believing that 38 out of 47 times were an "emergency". None of that changes the fact that we are 25-16 for the season. If we can start defending the pick-and-roll, I think our winning percentage will just get better. There have been several games that we lost in the last couple minutes due to our lack of ability to defend the pick-and-roll. We should improve in the second half of the season.
Hah. Of course, he might just be saying that to rip into them when they "only" get 48 or 49 wins. Ed O.
