Blazers last in the league in defense

Discussion in 'Portland Trail Blazers' started by B-Roy, Jan 1, 2021.

  1. e_blazer

    e_blazer Rip City Fan

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    I believe that what happened is the Blazers shit their bed.
     
  2. Rastapopoulos

    Rastapopoulos Well-Known Member

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  3. e_blazer

    e_blazer Rip City Fan

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    Moving on up...
    Defense is now up to 22nd in the league after tonight’s game.
     
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  4. TBpup

    TBpup Writing Team

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    Keep playing these crappy teams and we should climb to the 10-15 range.
     
  5. Natebishop3

    Natebishop3 Don't tread on me!

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    Our defense would be massively improved if Melo wasn't playing.
     
  6. e_blazer

    e_blazer Rip City Fan

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    Well, you can’t play the top teams every night, just the first 6 games, when people went bonkers around here.
     
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  7. THE HCP

    THE HCP NorthEastPortland'sFinest

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    But when the complaints were started being fired around, hadn't we played a real tough schedule against some of the best teams? What are the chances a few teams that were rated higher defensively, had played an easy schedule? We may be a bad defensive team, but damn, at least give it 20 games or so.
     
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  8. Wizard Mentor

    Wizard Mentor Wizard Mentor

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  9. TBpup

    TBpup Writing Team

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    So which teams would we play in the Playoffs? Asking for a friend.
     
  10. e_blazer

    e_blazer Rip City Fan

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    I thought this thread was about how bad the Blazers’ defense is. My point is that it makes zero sense to use league defensive stats after just a few games. Strength of schedule is a huge factor influencing those stats when one team has played mostly top teams and other teams have just played bottom dwellers. The Blazers now catching a few soft teams and some home court advantage just makes up for how difficult their early schedule was.

    Your point that the Blazers will play top teams in the playoffs is valid, and if they want a shot at making any noise, they are going to have to get close to a top ten defense by the end of the season. They’re doing better, but they have a long way to go.
     
  11. Phatguysrule

    Phatguysrule Well-Known Member

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    Almost like it was too early to draw conclusions or something...
     
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  12. Phatguysrule

    Phatguysrule Well-Known Member

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    The top teams. After our new guys have had months to get used to eachother.

    Should be fun to see how they do!
     
  13. Serbian

    Serbian Well-Known Member

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    Where do we RANK today after giving up 126?!?
     
  14. Pinwheel1

    Pinwheel1 Well-Known Member

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    Still 2 games back from having the best record in the league
     
  15. wizenheimer

    wizenheimer Well-Known Member

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    first thing, I think we all realize, or at least most of us do, that any numbers derived this early in a season shouldn't be used to form any broad conclusions about teams. Too much room in schedule differentials to keep out skew. And after a short off-season, and even shorter training camp, teams will probably take longer to find their footing than in a normal season. Of course, every team will have that disadvantage

    for the purpose of the regular season at least, a more telling number is net point/100 differential of offense and defense ratings. That has always been a little better as a predictive gauge

    for this season (last column):

    upload_2021-1-14_9-7-2.png

    I'm a stat fan so I've watched this for years. By the end of a season, you can take this differential without knowing team records and pretty accurately estimate what their won/loss record is; usually within a couple of games. Probably by the mid-season break this year, this differential will more closely track winnig percentages

    I will say, Portland has been a team in the Stotts era that has generally over-performed that gauge by a couple of wins.

    ***********************************************************

    as for defensive rating, and I think it might have been mentioned in this thread, that rating seems to be a pretty essential ingredient for a championship. I went thru the last 20 champions, and IIRC, 18 of 20 champions were top-10 in defense, and of those, most were top-5. And one of the two teams not top-10 was 11th. One team was an outlier.

    my guess why defense is so important is that it can be the most consistent component of a team. In the 3 point era I'd say offense can be a lot more inconsistent than defense. So, on night when a team is shooting poorly, if they have good defense, they can still hold the scoreboard margin to a winnable 4th quarter

    ***********************************************************

    another differential that was predictive of championships, although not as consistently predictive as defense, was rebounding. That makes sense because if your offense is struggling on a night, winning the 2nd chance point battle can make up for it

    Portland is currently 4th in offensive rating, but they have consistently been toward the top in that category in the Dame/CJ era. But they have only played 2 teams in the top-10 of defense. 9 of 11 games have come against teams in the bottom 3rd of the league in defense. And nearly half, 5 games, have been against teams in the bottom 5

    upload_2021-1-14_9-50-38.png

    in other words, Portland's offense hasn't really been tested yet

    meanwhile, the Blazers are 24th in defensive rating, 24th in offensive rebounding rate, and 7th in defensive rebounding rate

    and a note about the defense: Portland has only played 2 teams in the top-10 of offense. And only 6 against the top half of the league. All that makes sense considering the Blazers have had the 29th hardest strength of schedule so far. Blazers did have that good win against the Lakers early. But their other 6 wins have come against teams with a combined record of 17-36, a 32% winning percentage.

    Hopefully they can keep fattening their record and build some momentum over the easy start to their season because it's going to get a lot more difficult at the end of this month
     
    Last edited: Jan 14, 2021
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  16. Wizard Mentor

    Wizard Mentor Wizard Mentor

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    Blazers are 7-4
    4th in ortg
    24th in drtg

    Last season
    3rd, 28th

    It's going to take a while to get the new defense implemented.
     
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  17. Serbian

    Serbian Well-Known Member

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    Last season ; rank 26th..........This season rank 26th
    Daja vu...but i feel like this twilight zone.....oh wait stotts still the coach. I have never hated a person in personal life ever. But after 9 years of stotts i truly truly hate him. When will we fire him? Give me bugs bunny give me anyone who is clueless as a coach at least new face. Stotts is a disgrace. The man i robbing a franchise and smiling the clown he is.
     
  18. OneSport3

    OneSport3 The Knowledge Hoarder

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    If you hate Stotts, then you have to hate Olshey equally or more. Olshey is the one person that could fire Stotts yet he hasn’t. Stotts is just doing what he’s paid to do, albeit not too well.
     
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  19. Tince

    Tince Well-Known Member

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    Well put. I've never understood how people can say a coach is responsible for the production of the players he's given, but don't think the GM is responsible for the failures/successes of the coach they have hired.

    I've stated before, I think Olshey knows the second he fires Stotts, his clock starts ticking if we don't become a contender fast.
     
  20. Serbian

    Serbian Well-Known Member

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    I absolutely despise that fool also. The difference is i see stotts clueless face much more than olshey
     

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