What are you talking about? We have a far better team. Besides Jokic their roster was crap. We lost because we played with no effort at all, for quarters at a time at some points...in a *playoff game*. Whether that’s bad coaching or the players being lazy is debatable. But it wasn’t lack of talent.
Just look at the coaching in this series. Malone comes off as tough and intense. Players feed off that. Stotts comes off like Shaggy from Scooby Doo
...and not even that. So, for all the talk of the parity in the West, and Phoenix, Utah et. al. being pretenders, seeds 1-4 all went through.
... and why Nurk feels the way he does. Jokic was a total of -10 for the series. Since Nurk guarded him the whole time (when he wasn't coming out), it's even a bigger issue of their back up guards making CJ look silly.
Agree, and look at Jamychal Green as well. Clearly Denver’s second unit outplayed Portland’s by A WIDE MARGIN. In addition to getting a new coach, and trading CJ for a comparably talented wing, the other biggest change the team needs to make is to upgrade its bench or find a coach that can better utilize/develop the talent that’s already there.
Better team is debatable cause if you compare the ACTIVE roster i would say the Blazers had more TALENT but and this next point is where the NeO and Stotts factors came into effect -- Better BUILT team won -- Denver had a team BUILT to win in the playoffs while the Blazers did not. Also i LOVE Dame and i think he is a top 5 player in the league BUT i think the rest of the team and i think Stotts might have been the person who cultivated this next attitude is keep it close and Dame will go into Super Dame and bail us out and win it for us.
I"m curious--if the Blazers are again mediocre next year with, say, Billups as coach, will people readjust their priors on how talented this team is? Or will Billups just be the latest "worst coach ever?"
There is not a coach around that can make this current roster a championship contender. So blaming the coach for the team being mediocre would be a mistake and not fix the real problem which is the GM.
IMO the problems with the team are GM, Coach, CJ. We fixed one of them. Trading Lillard doesn't fix the other two.
Dunno about that. That strategy of single coverage and not fouling to deny Dame’s 3-pt shots that sent the game to two overtimes didn’t seem brilliant to me.
