Game Thread PLAYOFFS: ROUND 1, GAME 2: BLAZERS @ NUGGETS - MAY 24, 2021 - MONDAY, 7:00 , TNT & NBCSNW

Offensive rating for a team is a very good stat. Allocating it to individual players is a joke.

 

It’s funny to me people out keep adding Dozier into the “who there missing” category.
If he was playing it wouldn’t make a difference. We’d still win this series by the same amount of games

 

it's not a joke but for sure there are better stats to use. I've said before here, several times, that when it comes to individual ratings, about the only thing worth gauging is if a player is better or worse than his team. And the stat should not be used to compare a player from one team to another.

I only mentioned Kanter to point out that he's not making Portland's defensive rating worse

 

Bro, my bro, it is the truth. That is all I preach-----the truth. Heed my word!!!

 

Maybe rather than boo him, they should encourage some Nugget to guard him. What the hell did they expect with no one in his face.

 

This is why I don't understand how some people, in and out of the media, are trying to make like this is a real series. It is the pros versus the peewees and the peewees ain't gonna win a damn game.

 

...refusing to vote in poll until you add a 4th option

 

Expect Denver to come out strong. If Portland doesn't panic they will overtake. I still think close game.

But if the Blazers want to blaze the Nuggets out of the arena I won't complain.

 

In general I agree, but the Suns are better than the Lakers.

 

If we easily should be Denver there is a ready made excuse that it wasn't Stotts.

 

I'm worried that the Nuggets will come out like their seasons on the lie (because it kinda is) while the Blazers will come out a bit too satisfied with winning one of the first two games on the road.

 

Gooooooooo Blazers! Step on their necks... no mercy... no let up!

 

We weren’t allowed to use that excuse the first month or so of the season so...

 

Let me just explain this for everyone else so this guy obviously doesn't pay attention to any sort of context.

What I've said all season:
- We're extremely talented
- We have issues with our style of play that'll bite us in the ass against elite teams in the playoffs

Now, Denver is by far the BEST matchup for us because they aren't built to exploit any of our issues with our style of play.

- They don't have guards that'll kill drop scheme
- They're best offensive player plays at the same position as Nurkic, who did a great job guarding him game 1 (6 for 16) allowing us to play him one-on-one.
- They don't have good individual defenders to put on Dame and C.J. in isolation
- They don't have mobile bigs to trap the pick n roll as well as teams that have given us trouble in the past

So yes, those that have killed our defense and coach ARE confident in this series, because all the issues we've noticed don't really matter in this series because we're the more talented team and they're not built to exploit our weaknesses. Now, if we play with a better style of play (move the ball, switch up defensive looks on pick n rolls, run sets to get certain players good looks, setup the floor to beat the trap when they sell out to stop Dame, etc.) then our odds to win this series go up noticeably. But even with an iso-heavy, drop-scheme running, stagnant offense style of play, we should still beat them. And when we do, people will say that we were wrong about Stotts for criticizing him for those things while disregarding the context that we can play however we want against this team since they're not built to exploit that. Avoiding context is their favorite thing to do since they don't like opinions and will try anything to belittle them with "#CLOWNTOWN" instead of actually making sense or listening to what's being said.

Lets see what happens when we play a team that has players that go off against drop scheme, have perimeter players that we don't match up as easily against, have good individual defenders to put up against Dame and CJ in isolation, and have mobile bigs that trap Dame well. Every time we've played a team like that, we've gotten eviscerated and Stotts has been completely lost on what to do.

 

Because it didn't excuse why our offense was the most stagnant offense in the league, why we ran drop scheme more than 90% of the time, why we didn't have a wider variety of sets to get role players quality looks when they had it going, and a lot of other things.

What wasn't said is that injuries didn't matter. I'm really confused why people can't differentiate the two.

 

anybody else excited to see us continue to beat this Nuggets team? Time for Norm and Roco to get going early! Big night, another big game! Go Good Guys!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

And Stotts needs to anticipate "Call me Michael's" counter punch.

Then he needs to adjust accordingly.

Will he?

 

If we can basically limit them to one shot and our bench produce over 30 points we should win this game.