Obviously, Lillard and Aldridge brought it tonight. Obviously, most of the others didn't, and we lost a road game. Won't be the last. From staring at a laptop 7,500 miles away: I keep thinking this team is built a lot like the 2009-10 Magic, but being built like them and playing like them is totally different. LMA was big tonight, but 15 of his 22 shots were from outside the paint (the last 3 years, good things have happened when he's at about a 50% ratio). If the point of the offense is to have one of your best rebounders 16' from the hoop 70% of the time, you can't have bombers bombing away from deep and going 2-14 (non-Lillard). Either they have to work for more cutting/driving/close-in shots (which I don't see the skillset of) or get LMA (or Robinson, if you want to keep LMA in the high post) down low in the Dwight Howard role. Bombing away and missing (while getting outrebounded 47-39) while the other team is shooting 52% isn't going to help. And when the opposing bigs are Miles Plumlee, Channing Frye, PJ Tucker and Marcus Morris, there should be some semblance of low-post offense and attacking drives going on anyway. (It kind of reminds me of the PHX playoff series where they stuck Nash on Batum, and we didn't adjust our offense to exploit that) If we don't adjust, and keep bombing away without rebounding, we're going to do a lot of "live by the 3, die by the 3", which is always harder on the road. If we focus on offensive rebounding, then we still have offense if the shots aren't falling. But when Lopez isn't rebounding (and let's face it, he isn't Faried or Blair) and you're pulling LMA from the hoop, AND you're missing, then it's a long night. Gut feel, this isn't a personnel problem. It's a bad game, that could be indicative of a system problem if it keeps going unresolved. We're not going to have a lot of nights where our non-Lillard shooters go 2-14 from 3. Since I couldn't watch, here are some questions: 1) How were LMA and Lillard getting their shots? Was it pure pick-and-pop, or did they vary it up? 2) Did they switch up to a zone D at any point that helped? 3) Where was Batum getting all his rebounds? Was it off of long misses by PHX, or was he inside scrapping? 4) Was Lopez overmatched on D? We're one game out of having HCA through the playoffs, and we haven't played at home yet. Not. Swayed. (Yet.)
1. Lotta jump shots from both, mostly in rhythm, but definitely not the result of great ball and player movement. 2. I didn't see much zone, but wasn't watching the game all that closely. Mostly it seemed like Plumlee surprised them and they got beaten on pick and rolls a lot. 3. Batum grabbed a lot of inside boards from what I can remember. Solid effort on that end, but utterly passive on offense and wasn't especially notable on defense outside of a few highlight plays. 4. Lopez was an utter non-factor. Didn't board, got switched out onto guards a fair number of times, had trouble being an inside presence and just generally looked like a non-contributor on the floor.
The biggest reason why we lost was we lost sight of what they were sold on. Muscle, fundamentals and rebounding. Instead they bombed jumpers, took quick shots and didn't communicate on the defensive end
I think that's putting it nicely. It was the worst Blazer debut I've ever witnessed. Maybe there have been worse stat lines, but as far as the degree of his overall negative impact, none worse. And it doesn't seem an aberration, I thought he looked pretty bad in the two preseason games I watched as well. I'm sure he'll have a handful of games this year where he gets hot, but I don't think it's worth the careless turnovers, disruption to the flow of offense, facilitated fastbreak opportunities for the other team. He might be worse than Crawford was. Luckily, based on his Summer League play, CJ seems a better version of what Williams is supposed to bring us. I didn't think Lopez looked that bad. He had several rim protecting moments, which definitely was a new aspect to the team over last year. The Suns played small and cut down on his effectiveness. It would have been better to play Freeland more minutes I think.
One would hope that after Crawful & Failton, Stotts will recognize soon enough if Mo deserves regular minutes. At least, I hope so.
Several rim protecting moments? Like all the times he stood there with his arms up and got scored on?
As most of you know, I don't really care about wins because I want them to tank, but here are a few things that are alarming to after 1 game and even through the pre season Aldridge 4 rebounds Lillard 2 assists (Only averaged 3.7 pre season) 26 3PtA / 24 points in the paint 19 assists by the team None of those is how to play winning basketball This is not a bridge jumping post. it's simply an observation of one game
Interesting we had one more assist and one less TO than the Suns. They out hustled the Blazers though while out rebounding them. Not sure why Lopez was out of position so often defending their guards. I thought the plan was to get away from that.
Those are all alarming stats MM and a good observation. I just think Phoenix did a great job of taking us out of our game. I am concerned with Aldridge living front the perimeter. He needs to live in the post, where most the damage is made. Like Brian said above, if Aldridge is playing high post, then use Robinson more. We need to be in the paint. Our paint give up had more to do with Phoenix running the break and getting layups. When we made them play half court offense, they sucked at scoring there. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
Exactly. They just rebounded our bricked jumpers and ran the ball down our throats all night. No need to run a lot of set plays when the other team is constantly on their heels. The team need to get to the FT line to score easy points and give them and slow the game down.
If I could be so bold as to add a similar observation to your list, what happened to our 'improved bench?' The bench scored 12 points. blah. Go Blazers
Stotts had to play catch up the entire game. I wish he had the balls to sit certain players that weren't playing well like normal good coaches do. Robinson should have played significant minutes, even taking minutes away from Lopez this game. Also, it was pretty obvious that Mo Williams was playing like shit, so putting in Claver or Barton could have changed things up a bit. I think last night's game was designed for Barton looking at it in hindsight. It seemed Phoenix was trapping and swarming and sometimes you need a player that doesn't play in control to disrupt their defensive timing.
Denny/S2 u better hope the blazers turn it around quick cause if and when they are lotto bound by mid December it's gonna feel like August in here on game threads
