Game Thread PLAYOFFS: ROUND 1, GAME 1: BLAZERS @ WARRIORS - 4/16/17, SUNDAY, 12:30 PM (PDT), ABC

At center?

 

I still have high hopes that we can make some serious noise in this series, especially with Nurk and even more so in Portland... but DAMN, I am soooo excited for next year. With just a few tweaks to our bench and full year of Nurk it's going to be fun.

 

I think the most encouraging aspect was that GSW played a damn good game, and I felt we still had a chance. That was as close to the best defensive performance we could see from them and we were still right with them for most of the game.

Things like offensive rebounds, scoring off to's, drawing more fouls, and bench points might just put us over the hump. The question becomes can we do that for four games? Probably not, but I'm stoked to watch us try.

 

This is like last year play tuff for 3 QT against them and 1 bad QT had us fall short. But great effort but we need more from others that not name Dame and CJ.

 

I played 2K earlier and SMASHED the Warriors with Nurk...

18 Pts
16 Rebs
5 Ast
6 Blks

We won by 13

 

Well that settles it

 

I dont get why people are saying this. Sure with nurk hopefully our record will be better but we still have to beat this team in the playoffs. Why not beat them now?

 

Also, as a lot of us predicted, ET played some damn good ball in the playoffs. Solid of offense and versatile on D. Just wish we had anyone over 6'9 to provide a semblance of scoring ability

 

We're not ready. But I'm all for it.

 

I'll say this; if we had Nurk the whole season, we wouldn't be the 8th seed and I don't see any other team in the west outside of golden state that can beat Portland (with Nurkic) in a 7 game series. So this series would be more like the conference finals, not the first round. This isn't the NFL, or the MLB. One player can change everything. Without Nurk, were average, maybe. With him, we are very, very good.

 

So a better record next year will magically make us ready?

 

A healthy Nurkic would.

 

Nurkic' value to the Blazers is the same as Hardens to Houston, Westbrooks to OKC, Lebrons to Cleveland, whoever. You take any of those guys off their respective teams and their trajectory changes completely. Nurkic is even more valuable than Gobert for example. Gobert is Utahs defensive anchor (yes he's better than Nurkic defensively, save the smart ass quotes lol) much like Nurkic is Portlands, but Utah can win without him. They don't run their offense through him. Nurkic is a two way player. We run the offense through him, and when we don't, we rely on his screens and mere presence to create space. Unlike with Nurkic, teams don't sag when Gobert gets the ball in the post. And when we talk about the Warriors series, it's the only position where we really have an advantage, the only thing that would force them to change their gameplan. His absence cannot be overemphasized. Im surprised we even won games without him, but then again it took something extra, like Lillard scoring 59.

 

Why can't I be excited for the rest of this series AND the improvements we will see next year?

 

Wow.

Not even sure whether we'd have done better or worse today with him playing.

Nurkic could be replaced easily ($) by someone massively more talented and impactful.

Harden, Westbrook, Lebron, could not.

 

Lololol.

 

I think the better comparison is when Steven Adams doesn't play OKC are sunk. Nurkic is much more talented than him but they both do so many things that make it easier for their team to score. When they are missing both teams struggle bigly!

 

There are four centers in the entire NBA that have the all around game of Nurkic. KAT, Marc Gasol, Cousins, and Embiid. Four. That's it. But yeah, he can easily be replaced. For sure.

 

Burger King brought back the 2 for $5 menu. Original chicken sandwich, extra long cheeseburger, and whopper junior. Nice.

 

Jokic? AD?