San Antonio would still be in the playoffs and playing the Clippers in this round. We'd still be in the playoffs because we would've dominated Houston. We won the season series, Dame would be guarded by Jason Terry, and Aldridge would be guarded by nobody and wouldn't have to work as hard on defense. That one loss by the Spurs changed everything. Thoughts?
This is true. We had the worst second-half record of any West playoff team, and actually behind Utah and OKC. Of course, the Wiz were even stinkier, so...
I'd rather get bounced by memphis than gsw though. Losing to a defensive minded team teaches guys like dame more than if they lost to a bunch of shooters in gsw.
After watching that game last night GSW might have to rethink their whole game plan? Defense does indeed win Championships!
I've always told my friends here that GSW is definitely great, but will they be like the Phx's of the league. Offense is a important part of success, but playoff success is mostly predicated with half court offense and solid defense. GSW defense involves trapping, but they aren't as good defending the pick n roll just like our team.
GSW isn't anything like the old Suns teams; they had the number one defense this season. Memphis has been dominant when healthy and rested. They were #2 in the league most the season until they got tired from the grind of an 82 game season and injured. This is just a case of two really good teams playing each other.
Regarding the OP; I still think the Blazers would've got smoked in the playoffs. LaMarcus couldn't shoot worth crap and his hand really bothered him. He had to be the best frontcourt player in a series for us to have a chance and he got outplayed by ZBo. Dwight and Josh Smith played better than him in their first series. For all the praise LaMarcus got for toughing it out with his hand injury I believe he clearly made the wrong choice delaying surgery. If he had got the surgery he would've returned at full strength right before the playoffs. The team would've had a chance of staying in the race and perhaps fighting for their playoff lives at the end of the season. That would've got them on a better rhythm than the resting they did. Could we have missed the playoffs? Sure; but LaMarcus needs to trust his teammates because the only way we could contend is with him at full strength. Him playing though the injury increased our chance of making the playoffs but it greatly decreased our chance of contending. Obviously the Wes injury changed everything but we didn't know about that at the time so that shouldn't have been a factor in the decision.
Look up the numbers. Aldridge outplayed ZBo in every category. Aldridge's D didn't get enough credit in that series.
Aldrisge did good on Zbo defensively but he was horrible on offense and took tons of bad shots. He set the tone in game 1 forcing poor shots early in the clock and not letting his teammates get involved. What if CJ and Meyers had got some of those looks in game 1 instead of when the team basically gave up in game 4? I know CJ shot poorly in that game but LaMarcus basically didn't have any easy opportunities or obvious passes and panicked. I mean no matter what I think we lose that series but Aldridge played very bad on offense.
+> We lost so many games at the season end and with Affalo and Kaman injured that slightly altered the parameters. Still, the team was on the scneid and advancing out of the second round required miraculous intervention.
