Harkless needs to play (thank you Stotts). When either Zach or Enes guard Jokic they need to still help defend. It's not easy, life isn't, but they NEED to help defend.
We can live with Jokic, but we can't let Murray beat us. Why is that other teams can shut down Dame but we can't shut down one guy?
Because one is a center and one is a pg. You can throw different looks at Dame, whereas you can only send so much to a center. Jokic is not a good basketball player. That much is known, but if you let him have all the passing lanes open, he can look like hes halfway decent.
Another thing: Dame not looking for his shot and getting the other players involved is exactly what I want him to do going forward. Take over when it's time to but spread the balls around as much as possible, get everyone in the game
It's not about who is playing and who isn't. I don't care what level of basketball it is. If you give up the amount of offensive rebounds Portland is allowing. You're going to lose the majority of the games. That needs to change, nothing else. Not Kanter, not rotations, not who gets PT and who doesn't. Denver as a team is killing Portland on offensive rebounds. That's what needs to change.
The Blazers lost a close home court Playoff Game 4 due to Blazer coaching mistakes, unlucky mussed shots, and game determining referee mistakes. The 9 man rotation with a team that failed to maintain consistent, determined defense and was again outrebounded should have been given the benefit of energetic hustle talent off of the bench in the form of Meyers as one of the leading Blazer scoring talents, screening leader, box out force against Jokic, and most importantly swish3 scoring threat. If Meyers had been in the game in the 3rd Q, we could have scored our average 26 instead of the pathetic 14 points, due to better screens, rebounds, box outs, passing, and arc shooting. We needed the offense and defense that Meyers offers to win! Pivotal to losing this game were the terribly incorrect foul call and negated basket against Enes, when it should have been a Millsap foul (a 3 point swing possibly), and the blatant push of Zach by Jokic under the basket that allowed Jokic such an easy offensive rebound putback and score (another possible 4 point swing), as well as numerous pushing fouls on Jokic and fouls of Dame on drives to the basket--and this is on our home court! The Blazers need to stand firm on getting at least consistent call treatment on our home court! In the 3rd Q, we should have seen off-ball floor patterns and assist passes for Seth, Meyers, and Rod to add to scoring by CJ and Dame and aim for 15+ swish3 scoring and the win. The Blazers can win this series and the Championship if we will game plan, actively substitute, and optimize scoring (avoiding scoring less than 26 per quarter) to allow the obvious determination that won Game 3 to win again!
A healthy Kanter or Nurkic and we are up 3-1. We need to cut down on the Turnovers and box out more. The offensive rebounds are killing us and had a huge impact on this game, I think Meyers needs to get more time and just have him box out, we can live with single digit offensive rebounds but damn near 20 every game vs us is hard to swallow.
BS I assume in your book is actually saying something basketball related in one of your countless posts
Id like to see them play Aminu against Jokic much. Maybe give Meyers some minutes he should be big enough to get a rebound. Been an amazing series though these teams are fun to watch.
Regarding Meyers, at least when they're playing Plumlee with Jokic, Meyers should be considered an option