Game Thread GAME# 31: BLAZERS @ NUGGETS - FEBRUARY 23, 2021 - TUESDAY, 7:00, TNT

Discussion in 'Portland Trail Blazers' started by Darkwebs, Feb 22, 2021.

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Do you think Dame will shoot from half court this season (not in an end-of-the-clock scenario) ?

Poll closed Feb 25, 2021.
  1. Yes, multiple times.

    16.1%
  2. Yes, once just to try it out in a real game.

    45.2%
  3. No.

    38.7%
  1. Tince

    Tince Well-Known Member

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    "But it could be better!"

    We could be 1st in offense, and the style wouldn't be good enough for some. I feel like some people would rather lose pretty than win ugly.
     
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  2. Tince

    Tince Well-Known Member

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    If only our offense could be as good as the 3 teams with the lowest share of contested 3's.

    OKC, Memphis, and New York - The 24th, 28th, and 29th best offensive ratings in the league.

    I'll put this in the same bin I put "assists are important" and our "offensive rating is worse in the playoffs". I don't get the infatuation with charts that don't correlate to anything significant.
     
    Last edited: Feb 24, 2021
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  3. Strenuus

    Strenuus Global Moderator Staff Member Global Moderator

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    We lost.

    Just because we didn't lose by 20 doesn't negate the fact we lost.
     
  4. BonesJones

    BonesJones https://www.youtube.com/c/blazersuprise

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    So wait - You don't think open shots are better than contested ones? Yikes. You don't think having a good offense in the playoffs is important? Okay man.
     
  5. royo

    royo Well-Known Member

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    Nothing is correlated to nothing. Just shoot those 3s. If they don't fall, you say they just didn't fall. What you don't understand?
     
  6. mook

    mook The 2018-19 season was the best I've seen

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    Mello has not won a game in Denver since he left Denver in 2011.

    So once again Portland is preserving his legacy.
     
  7. mook

    mook The 2018-19 season was the best I've seen

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    We shoot a lot of contested threes because we have a lot of really good three point shooters and little else.

    If I were game planning against Portland, here's how I'd coach. "Play tight around the three point line and it's ok to get beaten in other areas. They are going to give Melo about 7-10 midrange shots that he'll generally do poorly on, and Dame will take about 4 drives to the rim that we'll just live with. Don't foul him, or he'll keep doing it. If he's not getting whistles he'll focus more on threes. They aren't afraid at all of taking midrange jumpers, which is ok if you can contest a little. If Portland doesn't hit a lot of threes, their defense is so fucking awful that if we have a good offense we'll win. But if it becomes a three point shoot out we're probably fucked. So do NOT leave anybody but Jones on the three point line."

    Unless Little emerges as a real offensive threat at driving to the rim, there is no game plan we can initiate that results in us taking fewer contested threes. We just don't have the personnel.
     
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  8. blazerkor

    blazerkor Well-Known Member

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    Dame will take what you give him. He can feast on drives to the hoop until the opponent decides to stop him and let him get off jumpers, hell he just feasted on assists tonight. Also that "anybody buy Jones" stuff hasn't been working out so well lately, he's shooting 37% from three over the last ten games and has been getting even better recently.
     
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  9. mook

    mook The 2018-19 season was the best I've seen

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    It does feel like Jones is improving, doesn't it? Very nice to see. He easily takes the fewest contested threes--mostly from the corners.

    If I were coaching against Portland, I'd still leave him open before anyone else out there though. He's just not that scary compared to guys like Gary or Dame or Ant or Covington or Melo. Those other guys will gun without a second of hesitation with just a small gap. Jones just isn't on that level.

    As for Dame, well, it's not like I'd have a plan to actually stop him. That's what makes him a superstar. You can't. You can game plan to beat his team, though. Don't foul him, contest threes, rely on Portland playing shitty defense. Stick to those three principles and if you have a good team you'll probably win.
     
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  10. BonesJones

    BonesJones https://www.youtube.com/c/blazersuprise

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    How does having a lot of good 3pt shooters mean we have to take more contested 3s? Other teams with a similar quality of 3pt shooters don't take as high a percentage of contested 3s.

    If teams defend us heavily on the 3pt line, why do we shoot the highest percentage of 3s in the league? We should be able to easily exploit that and create good looks and driving lanes, but we don't.

    Often times other teams work for open 3s. We don't, and tend to settle for contested ones.

    There's no way to spin that to excuse Stotts. It's not good.
     
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  11. kjironman1

    kjironman1 Well-Known Member

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    They told me mine was wireless. You plug this little USB connector in the computer. That is obviously where things get scrambled and then put together again. It is certainly happening to more than one of us on both sides of certain issues. The other day I literally read a post that said one thing and the author said he wrote something completely different.
     
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  12. kjironman1

    kjironman1 Well-Known Member

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    Maybe a guy that can create his own shot with great handles out there along side him would help? It's also been said that a decent Pick n Roll center might help as well.
     
  13. kjironman1

    kjironman1 Well-Known Member

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    @Strenuus Is Security. Just buy him a beer.
     
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  14. mook

    mook The 2018-19 season was the best I've seen

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    No team in NBA history had ever gone with just 1 turnover through an entire game until the Denver Nuggets faced our defense.
     
  15. kjironman1

    kjironman1 Well-Known Member

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    Turnovers are from a bunch of issues. A travel is a turnover. Illegal Defense is a turnover. A bad pass is a turnover. Not just steals and deflected passes which by the way the Blazers had two of.
    Denver had more than one turnover last night. They just only got scored for one turnover.
     
  16. TBpup

    TBpup Writing Team

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    Tought stretch of games. These are the types of teams we will see in the Playoffs. We didn't do well against them before all the injuries and we expectedly, we aren't doing very well now.
     
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  17. wizenheimer

    wizenheimer Well-Known Member

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    well, he broke his foot 5 weeks ago and just got out of the boot. It's not going to be a week or two after getting out of the boot that he's ready to play. Foot injuries are kind of tricky so I'm assuming there's a healthy dose of caution being applied. Probably mid-March at the earliest; might be early April

    IIRC, CJ broke his foot half way thru his senior year at Lehigh. Does anybody know if this new fracture is on the same foot?
     
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  18. Hoopguru

    Hoopguru Well-Known Member

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    different foot I read.
     
  19. wizenheimer

    wizenheimer Well-Known Member

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    when you say a dog throws a bone is that what happen when a dog humps your leg?
     
  20. Tince

    Tince Well-Known Member

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    This is deep stuff. Have a "good offense"?

    You tend to revert back to these vague, undefinable storylines after the data YOU tell me to look at doesn't come to conclusion that our offense suffers worse in the playoffs than the average offense in the playoffs.

    Show me league wide data, over a large time frame, with a correlation to winning, that says our offense has been bad (bottom 25% in the league). Heck, I'd take bottom half as a starting point.

    You can't, you won't.
     
    Last edited: Feb 24, 2021

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