Game One Forensic Fan (2014/10/29 v. OKC)

Great dissection!

Blake never made a shot, but I l love the way he moved the other second unitors around, getting the likes of Kamen and others into place.

I think Stotts needs to gameplay defensive assignments a little better. In the first quarter I begging for Batum to take the Westbrook assignment. Seems we have some decent defenders to tak on a guard spot, but they each have drastically different strengths. If a player needs to be bodied than Wes is the man, a blanket smothering calls for Batum, and if the guard is average or worse, that's for Lillard.

 

I was too, but maybe Stott's strategy for defensive assignments make more sense. Batum is clearly the best defender we have against ultra quick PG's, but maybe it is best to wait until the second half. That way he is less likely to be in foul trouble and he won't be worn out during crunch time.

 

Interesting that this was Portland's 14 straight home opener win. Ties a record with Boston. Even when we sucked, we won the first game. It usually takes about 10 games for bad teams to realize they are bad. I almost hate to play the bad ones early on while they still have confidence.

 

As always, the forensic fan does a masterful job! Repped!

 

Great recap - welcome addition!

 

Minutes:

• Starters had between 30 and 35 minutes played - almost SAish.
• Stotts played 10 players in the first half, 8 in the second - that's how he cut down the starters minutes.
• Rolo and Kaman played together for more than a minute or 2 - successfully I thought.
• CJ in rotation, other young pups out - though we'll see what happens when Biebs returns.
• Damian (superpassive in first half) was in foul trouble, giving Blake a few more minutes.
• Kaman had 22, Blake had 20, CJ had 16 - a new trend: I am saddened when Kaman comes out of the game, he's rock solid.

Bonus statistical anomaly: Rolo at one point had 1 defensive rebound and 7 offensive rebounds. Later he picked up two more def. rebounds to get the double-double.

 

It's funny because I felt the same way

 

Love that we won this game. But I don't love how we played the game. The offense mostly looked like dog shit, and we won not because we changed how we played but because OKC wasn't able to sustain their defense throughout the game - we simply outlasted them, which was to be expected.

There were only 3 good offensive plays last night. Starting with the best and working our way down: (1) Wes passing to Kaman in the post curling around a screen at the top of the key and diving down the lane to receive a beaut of a pass for a lay-up. (2) Side pick/pop between Nic and Rolo to kick off the game. (3) LMA's first post move of the game ending our first mini-drought. That's not to say the rest of the game sucked, just that our offense is not built on sound fundamentals.

I really liked LMA's first 3. Was disappointed we didn't go back to it a few more times. Even though he made a fair amount of those contested long jumpers, I never like seeing that as the staple of an offense.

Kaman is our most skilled big man. I haven't watched him play since his days with the Clippers, but aside from the shaved head and being a tiny bit slower he looked the same as he did back then. I like that we give him the ball and trust him to create his own scoring opportunities. It's something he's quite good at. Pulling Kaman and inserting LMA was a bad move. I understand wanting to get LMA back in the game, but at the time Kaman was a big reason we grabbed a lead. Given how Kaman was playing Lopez should have checked out when LMA came into the game.

Wasn't too worried about Lillard guarding Westbrook. I think it's smart to throw different defensive looks at the opponent's best scorer, and it seemed obvious that Stotts would shift Nic onto Westbrook at the end of the game. I think Stotts made the switch earlier than he would have liked, but overall I think it was the one thing Stotts did well.

CJ. Yup. I like that after two straight TOs Lillard gave him the ball on the next possession. CJ brought it up and QUICKLY passed it back to Lillard. But it was good of Lillard to not freeze CJ out for being an idiot of two successive plays, and actually FORCE him to touch the ball again. This game did nothing to change my opinion of the CJ pick (thought it was crap at the time, still do), but we HAVE to play this guy and get him to start showing some promise so he'll have some amount of value by the trade deadline.

All in all, that was pretty much what I expected from this game. Hot garbage resulting in a win. Hopefully we won't always rely on good offensive players to free-lance our way to wins, but I'm not holding my breath while waiting to see a well structured offense.

 

I'm done with Hubie. He needs to retire. Said that just minutes into the game

 

Sweeeet!

 

Good dissection, but the picture 'meme' thingies are not needed IMO.

 

Very well done article Brian!

 

I disagree. I think the meme's give it a flavor that's different from all the other takes