My point is that though Kanter may not be a great fit for our defensive system, he's a lot better that Super Mario, who we traded to get Kanter.
lol...it's 70 pages long....no thanks my point is that it doesn't seem to matter much how good a player is defensively when they arrive in Portland. By just about every standard, Nurkic is a better defender than Kanter. Yet, with Nurkic healthy Portland is 1-8 in the playoffs. With Kanter they made it to the WCF
just the last page, maybe 2. The claim (by Nate, I think) was that Kanter is a bad fit for our new defensive scheme, which is undoubtedly true. I pointed out that he's a better fit than Mario - Kanter is Mario's replacement.
Not really. I think we all acknowledge Stotts does better with a hurt roster than a complete and healthy one.
Passes Made: Tonight (255) Sesason Avg. (250) Potential Assists: Tonight (39) Season (42.3) Seconds Per Touch: Tonight (3.55) Season (3.48) Touches were obviously spread more evenly and it was nice to see Gary and Rodney get more opportunities run more pnr and use the off ball actions we see every night to score rather than as misdirection / movement to set up Dame ball screens...but watching this game our offensive success still had more to do with a good night shooting (26/56 on contested shots) with their lack of size on the wing and conservative scheme with Embiid laying back than anything we did differently stylistically or scheme wise. The offensive rebounding was a huge help as well. Defensively, I thought the energy and focus was definitely more consistent than we've seen, but their lack of perimeter / pnr threats (just overall speed on the ball) and playing through Embiid allowed us to use our size and limited the scramble situations that we've had such a hard time dealing with this year. TLDR - So maybe Stotts still sucks or is just ok depending on your view of things?
So. a/ Can Stotts actually coach, but he is so friendly and soft for stars that can't keep them accountable? b/ Stotts thought that he will lose this game anyway, so let Damian rest and he was taken by surprise by CJ again (like Ant Denver game) c/ This season is dirty and players make money on bets? d/ Our stars that are injured play lazy and energy saving basketball and we rarely see this kind of energy by them?
I don't know if the guy actually coaches. I think he might guide players like a high school guidance counselor. "So what is it that you want to do? We'll see how we can help you to get that done. Now go out there and do it." No real game plan on offense, just guys out there doing what they told the coach they want to do. On defense we all know that the schemes are horribly executed and Stotts answer is, "They just need to keep trying hard and we'll be a good defensive team." I swear we might get better performances out of our players if we just hired Tony Robbins (old school pop culture reference).
Absolutely. We improved from 29th in drtg to 28th, and we're not anywhere close to 27th. Obviously, Stotts is the long-term answer...
The offense and defense constructed around the starters is clearly flawed, and it was proven by a bunch of bench guys. As I said in the game thread, this either means that Stotts intentionally runs a different system with Dame, or he has no control over the team when Dame is playing. Either one is bad.
Listen, I don't think Stotts is great. I don't think they won last night because Stotts pulled off some amazing coaching performance. But when a team plays like that with guys out, you have to ask yourself why. Total fluke? Possible, if not probable. Could it be that the coaches, in 24 hours, made sweeping changes and implemented a new way of playing for this group? No. So is it the players who are out? Do they hold the ball too long, take breaks on defense, look to go 1-on-1 too much? Uh, likely, yes. Can the coach demand this doesnt happen? He can sure try, and he can punish those who don't listen to him. But in the NBA, this is rare. It just feels sometimes like people who played until junior high or high school think NBA coaches can and should coach like they did when they played as kids. Do what I say, or you are benched. Does Popovich do that? Sometimes. Not nearly as much as people claim. Watch a Spurs game. Guys do dumb shit and stay in the game all the time. And not every coach can pull off what Pop does, thats reality. We've watched Budenholzer, Rivers, Carlisle, Spoelstra (Miami is a disaster so far, as is Dallas), look less than impressive this year. Do I think Stotts should go end of year, 100%. Because his time has run out, they need a new voice, something fresh not stale. Absolutely. But blaming Stotts for every issue is ridiculous. Blame Damian for 1-on-1 ball. Blame Nurkic for being soft (he is). Blame CJ for taking bad shots. Those guys are all great by the way. Damian is incredible. But does he ALWAYS play the best basketball for the good of the team? Does he play defense they way they need him to? Not sure.
It's funny how there's a certain guy on twitter who seems to always think that every positive thing that happens to the Blazers is proof Stotts should be kept, and whenever something negative happens (like a loss) he'll compare the team to other teams. One game where the team plays defense doesn't ignore the rest of the time.
