Game Thread GAME# 43: BLAZERS @ WIZARDS - JANUARY 16, 2017 - MONDAY, 11:00 AM (PDT), CSNNW

So good.

 

I'm a big Noah homer... I want him to do well, but he absolutely SUCKS on defense. He switches when he doesn't need to, he looses his man all the time. He has no %^&$ clue how to play D. Unfortunately, neither does the rest of our team... so what the hell? Throw him out there.

 

Brilliant! Chewing gum is just practice for meals...gotta stay in game shape dude!!

 

They're not counting you.....you blew them off for some taudry Burgerville

 

After that fucking train wreck of a game, that's who you single out?!

 

No, that was a fluke. Personally, I don't think the team is gutless, just undertalented. And locked into that dearth of talent for some years to come.

Oy vey.

 

Man, I am so glad I had to be out on a site and away from desk all morning. Saved me the trouble.

 

"We need to focus better."

"They just made shots."

(rinse....repeat)

 

My theory is that this team is too close. It's like playing pickup with your friends. Yah you might yell at eachother but who cares, you'll still be boys a minute after the game ends. Blazers are the same way, but they're professionals, so it's unacceptable. There's no accountability, no one fears their job is on the line. Most of them already got payed anyway. That's why chemistry is overrated to me. Just look at the "jail Blazers." They might've had a terrible locker room, but they still won. I'm not saying get some criminals in here, but at least shake it up. It's time for these guys to be uncomfortable.

 

Can we all agree now that the CLE "win" was meaningless?

 

Don't cry.

 

Not meaningless, just not exactly meaningful. It's more aberration than trend.

 

I didn't even watch today's game. I was referring to the all the other games I have watched him in this year.

 

I see very little "edge" with most of the guys on this team. You don't even need a majority of your players to be hard-asses, but you definitely need a couple.

 

Well, this is a game thread, so that's how I read it. But sure, he's got a long way to go if he's ever going to get it.

 

and with that loss we are now the 8 seed in the west



wait what!?

 

Also, this game should illustrate why Stotts generally wants to switch everything: if your players get hung up on every screen, you don't have much choice. Hedging doesn't work when the guy getting screened doesn't fight over it. Stotts is not a defensive mastermind, obviously, but he's working with nothing on the defensive end. Tom Thibodeau couldn't scheme Portland into a top-20 defense. As I've said a few times, there is no schematic magic bullet when your players are fundamentally just terrible defenders. Any scheme he uses will have trade-offs, due to the limitations of his players, and good, smart teams will simply exploit what the current scheme gives up.

 

I remember Dame saying a few times that Earl Watson and before him Mo Williams picked him up when he was getting down on himself on the road...Dame is a great leader of character but he doesn't seem to have a Wes Mathews or even Gerald Henderson bark....I sense more and more that we are missing those guys like Kaman or even a Mo or Earl guy on the bench as much as the locker room...Kaman was in every big guy's ear when they subbed out from Joel Freeland to Meyers.....to me, that guy should be Ed Davis or in Wes' case, probably Turner...Turner just hasn't been around long enough to assert himself like that....Crabbe talks like he's in a library