Game Thread PLAYOFFS: ROUND 1, GAME 3: LAKERS @ BLAZERS - AUGUST 22, 2020 - SATURDAY, 5:30, ABC

We could have won with more talent, shot-making, lockdown defenders, and depth as well.

When you can only roll out 6 functional guys against 10 on the Lakers, it's unreasonable to think we're going to run circles around them.

Losing to a team that is far superior to you is not a very bad loss. The Lakers are better 1-2, 4-12, and it shows.

 

You forgot to say "At The End Of The Day" "It Is What It Is" would work well in there also.

 

This makes me angry because you pretty much nailed it!

 

I said "It's been said" not that there were players they could have added.

 

I guess we see it differently. Caruso, Kuzma, Morris, Howard, and Smith are SO much better than Trent, Wenyen, Marion, Ant, and Hoard in my opinion. You could make a case Trent is better than Kuzma, but after that it's totally lopsided.

 

I don't think Olshey is a good fit for the Blazers, and it has nothing to do with his drafting or the contracts he's given out or the players he's acquired or let go.

I think the Blazers need a GM who is a salesman. The organization and the community have a lot to offer, but it's not obvious like the Lakers or the Celtics or New York or Miami. You need to convince supporting players that they can enhance their status playing next to not only one of the great players but the great leaders in the game, that you have as supportive a group of fans as anywhere in the NBA, that you are in a city where you are THE team but it's pretty laid back and you won't have the microscope like some of these other cities.

You have to market your product.

But, to do that, you have to see it. You have to believe in it. And, maybe I'm wrong, but Neil just seems to me to be this glitz and glamour guy and I don't know if he appreciates the nuances that would make Portland and the Trail Blazers a preferred destination for useful supporting players, so we end up instead having to overpay and then we get stuck in situations where we don't have the cap room to make moves that we really need to make.

 

Agreed. As is the majority of our bench.

 

Oversells, maybe. Sells us a lemon? We made the WCF last year without our center, and are in a series with the league favorites and fighting down 2 starters. There are worse front office job performances. This is just never going to be a destination we can sell to young basketball players. Look how hard Dame and CJ worked to get Melo here - and in the end he only came because no one else was calling. It's done wonders for the twilight of his career, but I doubt anyone else will notice.

 

Who would you like to get his minutes? This outta be good.....

 

We need better

 

Can you explain how they have the best record in west if they “suck” as you so eloquently put it?

 

sure, I get where you're coming from

but you can't imagine the best of all possible worlds for Portland and not extend the same option to other teams. The Lakers are missing Bradley and Rondo, and those two would make the Laker bench a lot stronger. Those are also two players who can play good defense against the Blazer backcourt. Now, Ariza could play defense against Lebron and AD so there's a half-push. Zach would be overpowered by AD in my view

a big change was needed, but the change needed to be an upgrade, not a major downgrade. 4 seasons of the Aminu/Harkless forward combo was probably 2 seasons too long. 3 seasons of Turner was 3 seasons too long. 7 seasons of Meyers was 9 seasons too long

what wasn't needed was Bazemore, Tolliver, and Hezonja. Those are 3 more reasons to fire Olshey's ass. And, what else wasn't needed was Olshey making giant stupid bets on major contributions from Zach and Simons and not adding any significant competition for their minutes. But that's been Olshey's M.O. when he wants to force Stotts to play his favorites. Olshey broke the bench last summer IMO

 

and now....I've said, you've said, "it's been said."

just saying

 

Which is exactly why we had to go on an unexpected and amazing run JUST TO GET IN THE DAMN PLAYOFFS!!!! You DO understand this right? We don’t have a lot of talent and it took an UNREAL run to get where we are. You JUST now are seeing we don’t have a lot of depth? Wonder if us missing THREE of our rotation forwards has anything to do with that?

 

I don’t see Caruso, Kuzma, Morris or Howard making much of a difference if they were on the blazers instead of the Lakers. Guys like Anfernee and Little are talented, but we have done nothing to develop them with this high pick and roll all game offense. Anfernee is a scorer who needs to be put in positions to score. He needs to play with Dame, not CJ, so he can be put in spots to score off the bench and he can build confidence so he is ready to play in games Like this.

We need to run some of the offense through Nurkic whether it is in the low post or the high post. He can score, he can pass, his size is a factor and we need him to go at Davis. We are hardly getting any easy shots.

For Trent, we should be running pin downs and curl actions to get him going. Instead we have him just stand in the corner all game, which makes him easy to defend. Even with the trap on the high pick and roll, the Lakers know exactly where he is going to be to scramble back and recover.

Our entire offense is high pick and roll all game with a splash of iso for Melo. There is no variety to our offense so it makes it easy for the lakers (a good defensive team) to lock in and slow Our attack.

 

We had 3 fouls on Davis in the first half and never looked to exploit it. Maybe part of that was that everyone on our team had 3 fouls in the first half, but getting him out of the game would have been huge.