ok...thanks for explanation I guess my biggest issue would be, and I know you don't want to discuss the off-season...but my biggest issue is seeing how Portland can add another high level talent with CJ's contract clogging flexibility
Yeah, I am excited to see if we can do more in the playoffs first but I'm also excited to discuss with everyone, a lot of different ideas about how this team can seriously improve in the off season. So when the time comes I'll be all for that discussion. If the unlikely happens and we advance so far that moves don't seem to be the way the team should go... I'll still be posting about the moves I'm currently thinking they should make in the future. I'm not hedging my bets, I just want to pull for this team to do the best that they possibly can do until there's nothing left to play for and then address what needs to be done and what can be done.
I sort of gave them a pass previously because there is no shame in losing multiple tumes to the warriors and you expect maybe a couple years of overcoming a playoff only strategy. But if they still can't do anything to solve the trap in the next 3(hopefully 3+) games I'll have had enough. Dame is now 30, he is declining athletically, its a shame to lose his prime seasons with the inability to counter a very basic high school basketball scheme.
I've never thought they should have beaten the Warriors. But it wasn't just the Warriors who used that strategy, it was also the Pels and Memphis set the template before the Warriors used it and the Pels copied it. The book is out there, and there's little doubt the Lakers read the book between game 1 and game 2 what bothers me about the 3 Warrior series losses is that it's realistic to expect that when facing the same team, using the same defense, a 3rd time, there should have been some improvement. But, there wasn't. Not a bit. I get that Nurkic was out but he was there the season before against the Pels and it didn't make any difference again....if the answer was on the roster, we'd see improvement over a 5 year period. Maybe we will in the 6th year, but last night was pretty demoralizing
I legitimately don't understand how the fuck Stotts hasn't figured out how to counter this. Teams trap Harden and yet he is successful. Teams trap Curry and yet he is successful. How is it that Kerr can figure out ways to use Curry in his offense and get him shots but Terry can't? It's pathetic. Any time we have to go away from hero ball we just flounder. We trade off between Dame and CJ playing hero ball, and if they're both cold we just lose.
Yeah the coach should have something in place for traps. But Dame has been in this league long enough to get rid the ball before the trap. Plus the other players have to move to help fold the trap. You got have someone come up the middle received the ball so you got numbers then. But our big problem is we got 2 guards that likes to dribble to much and plus go iso to much too. CJ is the worst at that part of his game plus he always looking for his shot.
I’m telling y’all, the man doesn’t coach. He lets CJ and Dame freelance which may be successful against lesser opponents during the regular season, but is a recipe for disaster in the playoffs as we’ve all seen for the last six seasons. One of the Stotts fanboys please explain to me why the Blazers come out flat after the half in almost every game? Why do they consistently get outscored in the third quarter and then try to claw their way back in the fourth? Is he incapable of firing his team up and getting them ready for the half? The man has no fire, because his job is safe... and that’s on Olshey.
I like that side pick and roll, but you can't run it as close to the sideline as the Lakers forced us to do it. It's like adding a third defender with the sideline. And, honestly, Dame's not getting a lot of offense from the wing. He's much more effective from the top.
You supposed to run side pick n roll from around FT line extended with Dame going middle with 3 players on the weakside. Would be a good thing to do against the trap. That clip we were running it at halfcourt with Dame going towards the sideline with players in the corner. We do that way too much. 8 years into his tenure here and Stotts still has no idea what to do against the trap.
The funniest part to me is that we have been playing into this shit for five years. We screen for Dame like they're not just gonna trap. HOW THE FUCK HAS HE NOT FIGURED THIS OUT YET?!?!
I don't know if this has already been posted in here but the solution is obvious or at least why it's not being solved is. Dame isn't turning the ball over when he sees these traps, he's not getting stripped, he's not making passes out of bounds or to opponents and he's not getting pinned against the half court or sideline... these things aren't happening. Dame is able to pass out of these traps giving his teammates four on three situations (sometimes Dame splits the double and just makes teams pay by doing Dame things but that's not to be relied upon). The problem also isn't that our guys don't have the right skills to take advantage of the four on three situations our guys can shoot open threes, our guys can pass and we have a big that we can throw it up to and can either pass, shoot or get to the hole for what should be an easy score. If the guys out there with Dame are CJ, Gary, Melo and Nurk which I think is obviously the best lineup to make teams pay for these extremely early traps, then there is no excuse for these guys not scoring. The two guys Dame tends to get the ball to when trapped are CJ and Nurk. When CJ gets the ball instead of either taking the open three or rotating the ball around the perimeter to the open shooter, CJ tends to try to set up an offense or set up his own iso (almost always trying to set up his own iso) this nullifies the four on three advantage and gives the other team time to get back into their half court defense... therefore CJ doesn't punish teams for trapping Dame. Melo does the same thing the few times he gets the pass from Dame. Gary rarely gets that pass and is the most likely to either put up the open jumper or pass the ball, unfortunately he's passing the ball to one of the two guys who won't do the right thing. When Nurk gets the ball he either passes or hands it off and screens or if the lane is wide open he takes it to the hole. When Nurk hands it off the guy he hands it off to should take that shot that is now open because of the screen and lack of help due to the four on three. However that guy, almost always CJ, dribbles too much and lets the defense recover... if for some reason two of the three defenders are there on the hand off obviously a shooter would be open and the move would be to pass it immediately to that open shooter (CJ tends to not do this either and the same can be said for Melo). When Nurk has that open lane and takes the ball to the hole he often goes up rushed and weak when he has time to gather quickly and go up strong. These are the reasons we don't make them pay for trapping and they are the reasons teams continue to trap Dame. Simple adjustments seem to be the obvious answer. Tell CJ, Melo and everyone else to take the fucking shot or rotate the ball. Tell Nurk to stop putting up that weak ass shit. That's it! That's all we have to do to make this work with this lineup. Either Stotts is too stupid to see these obvious answers, he sees them and doesn't say anything, he sees them says something and then doesn't hold his players accountable or CJ, Nurk and Melo are just completely belligerently uncoachable. We don't know which one of these scenarios is going on because this team is so goddamn polite... it's a fucking shame. I think, even with what is most likely very weak accountability from Stotts that Nurk will fix his problems around the basket offensively. CJ on the other hand has throughout his career passed up open shots and open teammates to senselessly dribble the ball and try to go one on one. Melo obviously has a similar history to CJ. I think the only reason that CJ doesn't have a reputation for being uncoachable is because Stotts hasn't come out and said it... like George Karl did about Melo. If Stotts or Dame would just tell the media or more productively Olshey that CJ is a ball hog then I think a lot of our offensive woes would make sense or be alleviated. If we weren't so busy singing Kumbaya and compelled players to play their roles and execute efficiently then we'd have the most dangerous offense in the league. If the players can't be compelled then that should be dealt with in the off season. If we go with the big lineup then the solution is only a little different. You would have Nurk up high, CJ and Melo on the wings and either Hassan or Wenyen near the hoop. The situation is the same at that point except instead of the only two correct options being shoot the open shot or move the ball around the perimeter, there is a third option do dump the ball down to a wide open dunker. With their percentages you could even have Ant or Rio on the perimeter and it would punish teams enough to stop trapping Dame. This shit isn't rocket science.
