Quarter-Season Defensive 'Report Card'

a little more than a quarter of the season under the bridge so far and the defense is:

* ranked 29th in the NBA; last season's rank...29th

* giving up 113.5 points/100-possessions; last season gave up 116.0

* this season Portland is 5.3 points worse than the average defense; last season they were 3.5 points worse

* this season Portland is 13.4 points worse than the best defense; last season they were 8.9 points worse

so then, relative to the rest of the league, Portland ranks the same and is 2.5 points better. But, they have regressed 1.8 points from the average defense and 4.5 points from the best defense

one bright spot that shows an area of potential weakness is that last season the Blazers ranked 19th in defensive rebounding rate at 77.5%. This season Portland ranks 4th at 79.4%. This is mainly due to Nurkic, so if Nurkic goes down with his seemingly annual injury the Blazers could be in deep doo-doo

lots of D's and F's on the quarter-season report card, but as we all know, "it's not the roster"....the damn dog ate the homework

by the way, last night against Utah Portland's defensive rating was 138.6.....wut?

 

Wtf is this? Those guys have no shame? no ego? All wrong.

 

who was to blame for that play? CJ? Nurkic? Billups?

 

Nurk so far is our best defender but him showing just left Rudy wide open, should have played him straight up. No, help from the wings would not have stopped Rudy from easy dunk.
If I were Billups & Dame I would have called for Nurk to man up on Rudy.

 

All of the above???

CJ makes no effort to be in a defensive position. Instead he decides to start doing jumping jacks in the middle of the court.

Nurk hedges nicely, but was slow rotating back.

Dame on the strong side decides to vacate the lane and get closer to the shooter.

Snell on the weak side pretends to be a statue and doesn't move.

They might as well put a large neon sign above the hoop saying 'always open'

 

Right. Nurk looked lazy but why is CJ 3 feet away from the passer? And why does Billups allow it? (Unless he has been promised by Olshey that CJ will be going out December 15? How can I still be hopeful?)

 

It all starts with the piss-poor point of attack defense by CJ.
Yes, Nurk should stay with Rudy - but CJ gave absolutely 0 effort.

 

Dame watched that play unfold and had time to jump in the passing lane.

 

i dont know what chauncey wants from them and therefore who is to blame, but heres couple of ideas for this play:

- nurk shoulčd have stayed with gobert
- nurk switched on ingles & cj mccollum should have track down gobert
- snell should have switched on gobert & cj mccollum should have switched on mitchell

obviously, if youre nurk and you switch on ingles, theres no way you can track down gobert, which leaves two solutions: nurk played as he should have or nurk went rogue

 

In this scenario CJ should stick to Ingles, like very close instead of jumping around. And he is not even tall he cannot catch any lob pass WTF. Ingles even stopped the dribble, but CJ doesn't have the reflexes/IQ to understand he needs to get really close. But I don't get what Nurk does here as well. I think he messed up thinking Gobert will go screen for Ingles, but look at his effort trying to get back to the basket. Pathetic. And last but not least our glorious leader Lillard doesn't give a fuck.

Point is it took them no effort at all to get a wide open dunk.

 

Yes

 

STOTTS!

 

F

 

Because we know it’s not the roster, having two bad defensive coaches in a row is just bad luck.

What are the odds?

 

One worst trap I seen in long time and Nurk is to far out but the guard was totally worthless on this play.

 

While the other part of you is certain that they aren't?

 

The word “defensive” is the one that should have had the quotation marks.