There seems to be three major weaknesses emerge on the rare occasions that Portland ends up losing. The first one has been dribble penetration, we watched Phoenix beat us up opening night with Dragic and Bledsoe. James Harden did the same thing when we lost early on to the Rockets. Most recently it was Drue Holiday carving up the teams defense off the dribble at will. The Suns without Eric Bledsoe showed a second defensive weakness for this team. Dragic continued to have his way but the biggest story of the teams third loss had to be 25 points from Channing Frye. Dirk Nowitzki and Ellis continued to exploit those two major in a close victory over Portland. Kevin Love continued the trend of PF who can shoot from the perimeter hurting Portland but his game would have likely been in vain without the 30 points from Pekovic. Bosh's big game from the perimeter only further exploited the weakness. Lastly, T. Young, N. Pekovic and D. Howard have all posted monster games in the paint during Blazer losses. I personally believe controlling dribble penetration is the teams biggest defensive weakness as it contributes to easy shots, high percentage field goals, offensive mismatches for the opposition and increased FTAs. I believe this weakness can really be exploited by teams who stretch the floor well like Minnesota can with Love, Dallas with Nowitzki and Miami with Bosh. Teams Portland could have an issue with in the playoffs that they probably shouldn't are: Phoenix- Dragic, Bledsoe, Frye Minnesota- Love, Pekovic, Martin Houston- Harden, Howard Dallas- Nowitzki, Ellis Does anyone of these potential weaknesses worry you more than others, if yes, which one and what can we do to address the issue.
I think the perimeter big man issue opens the lane up for the other two, so I'd say I'm more concerned with that one. By the way, this is an excellent thread, and a fantastic post to start it. Repped.
Houston has a big 3. Harden, Howard, and Flopping. With our porous defense, it makes that one the hardest, IMO.
When Stotts finally demands that the guards stop pressuring the ball 30 feet from the basket we might get a little better on defense. Every time I see Lillard or Moe or even Wes out pressuring the ball far away from the basket I cringe and shake my head because I know what is exactly going to happen. They will get burned and then get into the paint and break down the defense. For some reason Stotts refuses to make an adjustment to this. Why in the hell were we out pressuring Philadelphia's guards all game? THEY CAN'T SHOOT! All this did was create wide open layups and stupid fouls. Until this changes the defense will continue to be turrible.
I know imagine how bad it would suck to win 55+ games get a home playoff series and lose to the damn Suns or T'wolves that would be tragic.
We will get 60 wins and probably face Houston, golden state or Denver in the first round. I like our chances!
Are you really still concerned about us making the playoffs? .500 ball from here on out gets us a 50 win season. Do you think we'll lose more than half of our games from here on out? -or- Are you just being a smartass?
Can't we be concerned about our Playoff success? I have ZERO concerns about making the Playoffs. Individual wins or losses don't concern me in the slightest. But I have serious concerns about HOW we're playing, and how that'll translate to Playoff success. Without one of the following, I'm not too stoked on our title chances: #1 - Improved defense. #2 - Interior offense. If we could implement both of those, then I think we're a very serious threat to win it all. But we might be able to sneak our way through by just adding one of them. If we don't add either, then I'll be shocked if we get past the 2nd round.
huh? Our defense is basically non existent. what does that have to do with making the playoffs, or anything I said?
MM was saying his biggest concern is us not playing any defense, not that his biggest concern was us not playing any playoff games.
We need to be better about showing different looks on the pick-and-roll defense. And those adjustments need to be based on who we are defending. There is no reason to have the defending guard go over the pick EVERY TIME and never hedge with the big man. If we are playing against a guard that isn't known for the deep ball, we should try going under the pick sometimes. It gets very frustrating watching our guard trailing the play EVERY time because he goes over the pick with no big man jumping out. It turns into a 2-on-1 situation almost every time. I understand that Stotts uses the 3-pointer as a statistical weapon and doesn't want to give the other team that weapon, but we need to be aware of who we're playing and understand that not every guard is going to light it up if we go under the pick.
So very true! He's really reminding me of Nate in this regard - all talk, but no follow-through. All we heard during training camp and early in the season was that our defense was designed to give up low-percentage jumpers. That simply isn't the case - we're over-extending our defense on the perimeter (low-percentage shots) and giving up the interior (high-percentage shots).
Damn good points! Especially the one about going over the pick if the guard can't shoot. That makes zero sense! There aren't too many players that are deadly with range, plus having the ability to drain the 3. I think we need to combat the strength on a per team basis. Example of a team that scorch us: Phoenix (Their guards can drain the long ball and slash to the bucket)
