Lol Dame eats CJ's lunch. CJ is a great growing talent but Lillard has been very good for 3 seasons now.
Have you ever noticed that the Blazers never have enough guards. It's like the saying about pitching in baseball. The Blazers go through guards like tissue.
The big games CJ and Meyers have had in the playoffs are major milestones in their development. Now neither one is going to be rattled in crunch time or if they make a mistake in the regular season. They can shrug it off and take pride that they lead us to the only playoff victory and played as well as our all-stars in elimination games. Rolo, Kaman and many established vets have never had games like those and they've been in the league a decade. I always thought Wes was our best guard but he is such an unknown now with his injury. One big advantage CJ has over Dame is his defense. Lillard had multiple plays today I was screaming at the TV because Udrih or Nick Calathes blew by him. His defense looked much improved to a respectable average level during the season but maybe Wes was covering up more of his deficiencies than I realized. Secondly Lillards long 3's are getting ridiculous. Its fine if he takes them when the offense stagnates or the shot clock is winding down but not as a first option early in the shot clock. Damian only shot 34% on threes this year behind Meyers, Afflalo, CJ, Wes, Dorrell, Crabbe, Blake and LaMarcus. With his defensive deficiencies he needs to be more efficient than our 9th best long ball shooter. I think he should look to create earlier in the game instead of waiting until the 4th quarter; maybe he tries to force threes every now and again because he feels uninvolved in the offense. I also wonder this year if the early season finger injuries Lillard had didn't heal. At one point there were reports his finger would bend to point completely sideways. He had a number of shooting funks. Hopefully those all heal up. But regarding CJ I'm very excited to see him next year. His ball handling is a great added dimension to our team and it should be fun seeing him with Lillard taking turns attacking the defense. I expect his free throw shooting to improve that is the only glaring weakness in his game right now. Obviously LaMarcus is our best player but a part of me would even be excited if he isn't here as we would have cap space and get to see some new styles of offense. At times when we force feed LaMarcus in the post it kills our ball movement and turns into an isolation game. Kind of similar to the Nate iso Roy ball; even if he has a great matchup its better to have a multi pronged offensive attack. CJ makes Afflalo very expendable though; at 6'4 with long arms he is similar size to Wade and can play SG. I don't see Wes leaving so where does AAA fit long term? He seems like a great guy and he never got time to get adjusted to the team so it seems very incomplete and unfulfilling if he wasn't back next season.
CJ showed us how badly this team needs a slasher. I swear we haven't had a good one in 15 years... Will Barton would have been a hell of a lot more use in this series than AA, and he would have been super hyped against hometown Memphis, but I liked that trade at the time. Stotts' offense stagnated this year when the league figured out how to trap Lillard. With a team full of stationary players, they never found the answer. We rarely got the ball whipping around the perimeter like last year. Against Memphis, CJ made an impenetrable defense look pretty ordinary. To paraphrase Snapper, if you can't move the ball, move the people!
This!! I am super excited about CJ, but lets not jump the gun just like everything else around here...
Actually that is exactly what was happening when CJ started in game one. CJ is still a relative unknown. But with Allen on him all the time he would not have been nearly as effective.
Lillard was shut down by both Allen and Conley. Apparently just about anyone can do a job on him now.
You are aware of what Lillard accomplished in his firs two years correct? do you know the small list of greats he joined? Has CJ won a playoff series? has CJ even played a season as a starter? You obviously were having some fun here. I refuse to believe you are that basketball ignorant. HAS CJ RECORDED 18 REBOUNDS??????????????? SHIT HAS LEONARD OR LOPEZ? oh sorry got excited.
hold on, you're trying to tell me that the last 3 games surpass the previous 3 seasons? See, this is why we can't have nice things.
