Last night was only the latest example of the Blazers not putting their best situational team on the court for a specific possession. Stotts was horrible at this and if last night is any indication, Billups is continuing the same trend. WHY would you let two of your poorest/porous defenders remain on the floor in an end game situation? The final possession had Cov/Little/Powell/CJ/Ant on the floor supposedly for switchability purchases. But what team needs a switch when it is so easy to get by whomever is in front of you? First of all, it's the dreaded 3-guard lineup. Second of all, your two guards have been getting torched all night....and then you keep them both in the game for a possession that is most likely going through Edwards or Russell? Then taking out Nurk to protect against the inevitable blow by. Some rotation of Nurk/RoCo/Little/Powell/DSJ seems better from a TEAM standpoint for a final possession. If ego is getting in the way of a team outcome, then those egos need to go, or they need to take steps necessary to be able to stay on the court. It is one possession. Why won't our coaches do that?
I think it has more to do with Billups as new coach things he has to learn or could be he wants a guy like Simons to be put in situations like this to learn from them. He’s part of the future and this year is great opportunity to sacrifice a win for the bigger picture. If it means we lose couple of games so be it, in the end we aren’t a title contender so get these guys experience for next year. We are already seeing huge growth
This was specifically talking about the last possession and the almost obvious substitutions that didn't take place, as has been an issue a number of times. Not sure what all the other stuff if referring to. Sure, CJ/Ant may have been better on defense than offense last night, but that bar was so low, it still wasn't very good. If we have a final shot in a tie game, wouldn't we want our best offensive players on the court? Same goes on the defensive end for a final possession. Yet time and time again, we have multiple members of our poorest defenders club out there. If Coach wants it to be a learning experience for Ant, that at least makes some sense. But then why have BOTH he and CJ out there? CJ's learning curve has come and gone.
My goodness.....I've been talking about the final defensive possession of the game the entire time. What does that have to do with who is shooting? And CJ's "best defense of his career" is still well behind DSJ or Powell.
Clarify? Read the posts. The final possession is all I've talked about the entire time. The words "final possession, specific possession or one possession" are mentioned 4x in the OP. Then "last possession and final possession were used in the follow up post. Exactly how much more clarity would you suggest? Also, where did I say Stotts was a bad coach? Nowhere. I did reference him being horrible at the exact, specific type of situation I was describing as he allowed some of his worst defenders in the game in final shot/last possession defensive stands over and over again. Is it possible a nap is going on while replying?
i think i can answer this. Because cj and ant are also our best ling ball threats currently and in order to win the game we likely needed a ling bomb to go in from one of them. As it is cj hot the 3 with a few seconds left. Take them out and i think we lose by more in this scenario.
my G man. Just say you made a mistake. Lol. Its not that hard…. you asked him to clarify something he made very clear. No “oops. Missed that”. Or “sorry”?
Minny got the ball in a tie game with 10 seconds left. Shot clock turned off. Blazers had a time-out so they didn't need to transition immediately to offense if Minny shot early Blazers could have went with their best defense lineup: Smith-Powell-Little-RoCo-Nurk; which also happens to be their best rebounding lineup in case of a missed FG by Minny (rebound and call timeout). so yeah, it's hard to defend that lack of situational awareness
Portland had a time-out. They would have had an opportunity to advance the ball (which they used) and to bring CJ and Simons back into the game besides, as I mentioned in the earlier post, for Minny the shot clock was off in a tie game. They could have run out the clock with a shot just before time expired. Portland should have been all-in on the defensive end. CJ and Simons is the opposite of being all-in on defense
Yeah with Towns in the game I would have left Nurk in. Little was on Edwards, and although Ant was very close to making a great defensive play on Russell...... RoCo should have been covering him.
I don't agree. Their defense wasn't good enough to not have better defenders on the floor, and Powell and Smith are better defenders and of course, Simons couldn't stop Russell when it counted. Powell might have
But again, I am and was referring very specifically to the last defensive possession, so it had nothing to do with who they might need to take a shot. They still had a timeout, so can make offensive substitutions then. Yay....someone read it and gets it. Thank you. Except that you were quoting my posts, but then misquoting what I said or not referring to the very specific situation mentioned. No worries I guess, but it is quite confusing. I agree about what they would want at the end on the final offensive possession, but that had nothing to do with the final defensive possession as they had a timeout remaining.
but maybe the coach wanted to save the time out for one other last possession? Id have to look at the seconds left but don't cj hit the 3 with less than 10 seconds? Maybe the defensive stops doesnt come in time to call a timeout? Im just not sure i see the decision making as black and white in this scenario.
i might not have the last couple of possessions and timeline remembered correctly. I forgot they would have been able to run out the clock. thats a deal breaker there. My fault. I get it now.
I never said Stotts was a bad coach. I did reference him to being horrible in similar late game situations where he had left poor defenders in when much better ones were available. That is obviously referring to a very specific situation at the end of a game. And I reference this once already about being misquoted. I also didn't contend that we lost the game last night due to horrible rotations. It was merely a question as to why we don't put in our best defenders on a final defensive possession.....like we put in our best offensive players for a final offensive possession. We are all welcome to our view, but let's at least stick to what was actual said and discussed. Fair?
lol. Hey some people can just say oops and some cant. I get it. I understand now “ i was wrong” is not part of your vocab. All good. You are entitled and have the right to react however you like. But then theres that cred…. anyhow like i said. Carry on. Aint no thing…
