The Blazers played 35 games in the 2017 portion of the 2017-18 season, and were a perfectly Mediocre 18-17 on pace for a playoff-missing 42-40 season, including a 5-8 December that saw us shooting a middling 44.3% from the fields, and 36.8% from three. Even though our defense kept opponents to a respectable 100.7 points and a ludicrously low 18.9 assists per game and 35.5% 3 point shooting against us, the defense was not producing wins, possibly because our own assists were even lower than our opponents (a bottom-side of the bottom of the barrel 18.0 assists), resulting in only 101.7 points per game Worst of all? We were shooting only 24.7 swish3's per game, which would rank us 25th out of 30 teams. Yikes. But then, a ball dropped, a number changed, and the days began to grow ever so slightly longer. In the 41 games so far of the 2018 portion of the 2017-18 season, we've leveled up: +8.0 Points Per Game (109.7) +6.0 swish3's Per Game (30.7) +2.6 Assists Per Game (20.7) In 2018, we're 29-12, a 58-win pace. Our assists are still the lowest in the league, but that's the price you pay when your primary ball-handler also likes to score in bunches unassisted. If Dame got an assist for making dagger 30-foot threes, we'd be an average assist producing team, and he'd be a shoo-in for 1st Team All NBA. The league, of course, has tried to slow us down using aggressive swings in opponent and Blazer FT attempts: 2017: Blazers - 21.5 FTAs, Opponents 21.4 FTAs 2018: Blazers - 20.8 FTAs, Opponents 22.6 FTAs but let's split this up a bit to before and after Stan Van Gundy complained publicly after the March 17th Detroit game: 2018 (Games 1-34): Blazers - 21.1 FTAs, Opponents 21.9 FTAs 2018 (games 35-41): Blazers - 19.6 FTAs, Opponents 26.0 FTAs *cough* rigged *cough* Anyway! Even with the league trying to cool us off hard, we're playing great, and should be quite the matchup problem for teams the league will allow us to beat in the playoffs!
It'll depend on our identity at the beginning of 2018-19. I do think Nurk is a "work into shape" player like Andre Miller was, so I expect he'll underperform in the months leading up to February every year, then ramp up a lot in March until he's beasting in April. But a lot of our woes at first feel like a team that tried to do too many different things at once, then settled back down to comfortable habits without losing the good ones they learned (better defense being the best of them). In the early season, we force fed Nurk early in the post, which didn't work out great; we emphasized defense over all else, and we de-emphasized three point shooting to compensate for the additional energy spent on defense. Too many changes, and we learned that Nurk does better on the roll than in the post, better in March than in December, and we do better as a whole when we shoot an average or above average number of threes. All of this should pass through into next season, giving us a better jumping off point than 2017 provided.
Well, we'll see with Nurk next year if this year was him getting used to the lower weight or not. I really feel like he wasn't as bad as people thought he was earlier in the year. Obviously his shooting percentage was bad and he was really inefficient but his overall numbers weren't that much worse than his Nurk Fever run last year. If it was as simple as fixing his mindset to attack the basket strong and not flip the ball as much then I don't see any reason why he can't do that all season. The pick and roll with him and Dame is practically un-guardable right now. On a side note, I absolutely loved the play where he faked the hand off to Dame and spun to the basket while both defenders were left in the dust at the 3 point line because they were so focused on Dame. Your point about the post ups is interesting. I don't think it is a bad idea to force some post ups occasionally. I'd actually like to see Collins post up more too. If Nurk can start commanding a double team that would make it easier on Dame and CJ as I think Nurk would be a willing passer in those situations.
Eh I don't believe Nurk to be a 'work into shape' player like Miller or Shaq were. An article came out 1-2 weeks ago from whomever saying Nurk didn't have structured shooting drills until the all-star break. That Nurks drills were a bunch of flip shots, the shots we were seeing in the game. I'm a firm believer you play in games how you practice. If Nurk solidifies his footwork in the off season. Nothing will stop him from picking right up where he left off. But it will show immediately if he did not, in both shooting % and blazer record.
That's great news then; if it has always been a matter of concentration and discipline, then hopefully he will be even better as the months and years go on!
