: / 3-22... at least they attacked the rim once they realized philly wasn't going to allow 21 triples again. Because that's the right BASKETBALL PLAY. ATTACK THE RIM RATHER THAN SHOOT CONTESTED 30FOOTERS. like they've been taking and making. When it's not falling. GET TO THE LINE, get some RHYTHM in your offense. being that I've stated I'd ride with this team until the off season if I were the gm... and defended mo from posters in this thread. kinda silly to point that out. (this following paragraph is to no one in-particular) point of this thread was to say. one of the blazers strengths is free throw %. Playing to that strength and trying to stay around 20-25 three's a night isn't illogical... in fact the stats kind of back me up in that department.(who knew I'd use stats... funny) attacking the basket is a better BASKETBALL play, than to jack up bombs and watch them clank off. Because watching 30 contested 24-30footers clank off isn't fun to watch. I'm sorry if people would rather watch missed 3's but I don't want to see it. I'm in the minority I know. I understand the 3 ball/dunking hypes up casual fans.(look at lop city, look at the suns of the 2000's) Have a wonderful Sunday. Go Blazers.
I think that, like any situation, you have to adapt from the plan after it survives first contact with the enemy. In your case above, sure, the 3's weren't going down (and didn't all night). Dame (for one) then took his game to attacking the hoop. When you see that the officiating is not giving you free throws on your drives, the eFG% on those goes back down to the poor results that Dame (or anyone, really) has when hammered in the lane, which is suboptimal. At least you can possibly get your 3pt stroke back within a game. Officiating probably isn't going to change.
What's great is that we usually win even when the three isn't falling. We shot 8 of 33 against aokc in OKC and won. Ironically, it was on a made three by Batum that gave us the lead for good. Our problem last night was that we got timid. We should've continued to shoot the three. A couple would've gone down and we would've won. We shouldn't change who we are when we're 26-8. Let's win the next three against lesser competition and go spilt our road trip. That would make us 32-9, a great record for the halfway point. GO BLAZERS!!!
In every game there is played at any level of basketball calls are missed. To use that as a reason to not attack the rim isn't something that should ever cross a players mind. In the 76ers game, calls were missed on both sides that I saw. Not ones that "M&M" attempted to point out. or were in "shock" that they weren't/were called. The only thing that is really an issue is, the 76ers isn't the first game that the Blazers shot of a poor % from 3 and continued to jack them up. But I agree, if teams give you the 3 you need to take it. If they are good with their rotations like the 76ers were. You need to drive to the rack with force. Not take contested threes. It wasn't really the 3 ball that won the game by the Blazers against OKC. It was the combined defensive efforts of the team and Batum to tire Durant out. He showed against Huston last year without Westbrook he gets tired. The Blazers took advantage of that. Also it was the key rebounds in the second half that won the game. Basketball wasn't pretty against OKC, they shot too many 3's. But they did enough of the little things to win the game. it's not changing who the blazers are. it's not becoming one dimensional, and the stats back me up. 23.5 attempts from 3 in November at 42% 28.1 attempts from 3 in December at 38% 4% is a pretty big drop off when you're shooting about 4.5 more. When the blazers shoot less 3's they make more of them, when they settle they make less. If they didn't go down? then the blazers would have went back to the old saying. Live by the 3, die by the 3. History repeats itself if not learned from. The blazers learned the 76ers were going to chase them off the 3 and they attacked the rim. If not for Lillard missing a wide open LAYUP, the game would have went to OT. He got the WIDE OPEN layup because the 76ers game plan was to stop the 3ball. bbqing. ttfn.
What road trip are you talking about? If it's the Texas and OKC one, then if we beat out all the teams before that and split the trip, we'd have 10 losses.