We now have the 14th best offense and 24th best defense. 7-4 could be hiding stuff here. Really want to know how much our 2 massive blowout losses are affecting these rankings.
Thought this belonged, if it hasn't been posted already: http://www.nba.com/blazers/steve-smith Also to echo BNM's post, last season we didn't win our 7th game until we'd accumulated 10 losses. Obviously we can make improvements, but I think that's a good thing. It will keep us focused on getting better. We want to improve and continue to improve all season and hopefully play at our peak at the right time of year. We just have to hope that we can win enough games along the way to get into the playoffs, and I think we're on track for that. I think some people are disappointed thus far simply because our team grossly overachieving last season has inflated our expectations a bit. We have to remember that nearly this identical roster was picked to be one of the worst teams in the league last season. I think we're fine. I want more of course, but I don't think we're too bad off either. I'm excited to see if this team improves.
Something that I think is unfortunate is how out of balance our schedule is. We definitely want to be playing better in March/April than November, but I fear our easy end-of-season schedule will have us overconfident. From March 1st to the end of the season the only truly good teams we'll play are: SAS x2 HOU x1 UTH x2 (and we'll see if they'll actually end up being a good team) Of course, it seems we tend to struggle against the Wolves, whom we play THREE times, and PHX whom we play twice. So despite what should be a cake walk, we might face plant a few times. Not only is our competition quite weak, but over the last 3 weeks of the season we only play two road games. Of course this means up to that point we're playing A LOT of road games. We're just about to embark on our first of three 5-game road trips. Our 2nd 5-game road trip is broken up by a single home game, which is the 2nd night of a B2B, before another 3-game road trip which brings us home for another home game on the 2nd night of a B2B! December is going to be a brutal month. Anyway, I just wonder if churning through lottery teams at home to end the season will have us unprepared to play really good teams in the POs.
So now we are 12 games in and the theme remains very much the same. In their wins, the teams they have beaten are a combined 27-46. In their losses, the teams are 33-14. They are beating the bad teams (barely and even then, some of them are missing a lot of players) and they are getting thumped by the good teams or taking a bad loss like against the Suns. Wins: Jazz: 7-5 (Home) Jazz missing 2 starters and a key bench player. Nuggets: 3-7 (Away) Denver with one of the biggest meltdowns in the final minute you'll see all season. Mavs: 2-7 (Away) No Bogut and Nowitzki only played 16 minutes. They better have won that game. Grizzlies: 5-5 (Away) Best win of the season so far. Suns: 3-8 (Home) Barely beat a bad Suns team. 2 nail-biters against a team you should be blowing out. Kings: 4-7 (Home) Kings on the 2nd of a back-to-back. Should have taken them out much earlier. Nuggets: 3-7 (Home) One good 3rd quarter but struggled to beat them on their 2nd of a b-2-b w/0 Barton and Harris, 2 of their top 8. Losses: Clippers: 8-1 (Home) They are just the much better team right now. Warriors: 7-2 (Home) Warriors not as good as last (yet) because they have no size. Neither does Portland so it's actually worse for the Blazers. Suns: 3-6 (Away) Bad loss to a bad team. Clippers: 8-1 (Away) A complete embarrassment. A 40+ point deficit heading into the 4th quarter. Bull: 7-4 (Home) Embarrassed by a tough Bulls team who were without starting PG Rondo and top bench scorer Dougie Buckets. The Blazers are just not competitive against the good teams as of yet. Last year it seemed they played up to the level of their competition much better for the most part. They are getting killed on the boards and in the paint on a nightly basis and now only 4-3 at home with two blowout losses. Their only win against a team with a winning record is against the Jazz in the first game of the season. Utah was without 2 starters and a top bench player that game. This is the definition of mediocrity but what makes it worse is they have the 2nd highest salary level in the league. Hopefully Olshey can pull off some trades very soon or this team is stuck in purgatory for a long time right as Dame is in entering his prime.
^^^And how many times have we had to take games to OT in order to get those wins against bad teams? If we can't make a meaningful trade we'll have to eat Terry's contract and try to find someone who knows how to best utilize the roster pieces we have.
1) Totally agree that the Blazers are bad, but if you're going to point out who's missing on the other teams, you need to do the same with the Blazers. A bad defensive and rebounding team has lost it's best defender and it's best rebounder in Aminu. Not to mention that Ezeli hasn't played.... of course he may never! 2) I think we've held up against the competition pretty well, EXCEPT FOR LETTING THE OPPOSING TEAMS GO ON MASSIVE RUNS. We've been making a lot of runs, but we're giving up way more. 3) We can beat anyone! But, in the final analysis we're fundamentally flawed because of defense and rebounding. The last half of last season we played harder than all of our opponents - not this year
