Now Dame's out, we need to decide at least one new starter. And I say we should ditch Whiteside from the starting lineup, because with our best scorer (by a large margin) out, we can't afford a non-scorer in the lineup. I say go super-small. They're going to kill us anyway, why not run them ragged? Melo at center! Three point shooters at every position!
I want Gary Trent Jr. to play 40 minutes and have the green light to fire away. Let CJ play point. Beyond that, I don't really care. A 5-out lineup would be cool, but does Portland have 5 good three-point shooters, without Lillard being available? I don't really see that as a possibility with no Hood or Ariza.
I want Ant to play 48 minutes. He'll suck for the first 24 at least, and we'll go down by at least 40, but if past experience is any indication, he should play pretty well after that, and we should only lose by about 30.
Start Ant and Trent in the backcourt and play them as many minutes as possible. Give Gabriel and Hoard plenty of minutes as well.
I'm not in favor of just mailing the game in by playing bench guys. The Blazers are in the playoffs and, even though the odds are deeply stacked against them, I think you give it your best effort to win. The obvious choice would be to simply start GT2 as SG, shift CJ to the point and run the standard rotation, but with more Mario at SF since Trent will be at the 2 and with Ant getting more burn. I think that's what Stotts will do, but I'd kind of like to see him shake things up more. Start Hezonja at point and keep CJ off the ball where he's more comfortable. I'd also prefer to give Wenyen the starting spot at PF. He'll draw fouls like usual, but I don't like wasting Nurk's minutes at PF.
I'd also like to see more Wenyen. I want to know if he's anything, or if he's nothing but a very foul-prone flash in the pan.
Start CJ and GTJ, Simons 24-30 min off the bench. Melo and Mario at forward (interchangeable) with Nurk, and bringing Wenyen and Whiteside off the bench.
I say we run with CJ, Gary, Melo, Wenyen and Nurk we play them heavy minutes and bring Hassan, Ant and Rio off the bench with Ant playing as little as possible... speaking of Little, do we know Nas' status for game five because I would like to get him some run too if he's healthy. I say we go all out in this game. I say we lean on CJ the way we do Dame and see what CJ can still do (lets hope he scores 50 and we live to fight another day). Not only does that give us the best chance to win but it will get Nurk important playoff minutes and hopefully Wenyen, Nas and Ant some too. The other thing that I think about but Stotts obviously won't is showcasing what CJ can do to improve his value around the league or to see what it would be like next season if we played Dame and CJ far less together... maybe leading to CJ being our sixth man and being able to finally play Dame a normal amount of minutes.
Dame is in Portland getting his knee evaluated by team doctors. That's about as far outside the bubble as you can get in the US without him coming to visit you.
I’d like to play to win. It’s the piss and purple... Tent CJ Melo Whiteside Nurkic Then bring in Gabriel for any of Melo / Whiteside / Nurkic followed by a pair of subs in Mario and Simons and I’d like to see more out of Hoard. I’m not sold on Adams (too small) and I’ll assume Little is still out
Activate Lillard and let him prove he has heart. We're paying him enough. It's an MCL, not an ACL, he should stop acting like a little baby.
I agree about taking Whiteside out of the starting lineup but it should be noted that when we beat the Lakers on Kobe night, he scored 30.
