Don't forget how well OUR defense has played recently. I do think the Rockets will be able to slow our offense - they are very good defensively, but I think we can shut them down too. How we defend Yao is pivotal. If we can keep him in check, they will struggle to score as well. Earlier in the year our pick-n-roll defense was awful, but it's improved dramatically down the stretch. Plus, Houston doesn't feature that enough to scare you. They will try to pound Yao, get our bigs in foul trouble and (if that happens we're in trouble) that opens up a lot of looks for everybody. My biggest question is this . . . can the Blazers maintain their defensive focus in a 82-79 game? If we're shooting 37% from the field, can we keep our concentration on defense for 48 minutes to shut THEM down too? If they do, the series is there for the taking. If they get flustered because the shots aren't falling and have that leads to defensive lapses - we're in trouble. It's going to be a slug fest, and it might not be pretty. But if we can "win ugly" we'll move on to the next round.
Unfortunately Aldridge is being outplayed by Scola Today. The only matchup I thought we had an advantage.
I'm quoting myself, because, well I was right.... Brooks a 2 year PG killed us. Destroyed our defense. How can this be?.... But it happened last time we played and it happened again... Lets hope we can stop him Tuesday.
If LaMarcus doesn't show up again and score at least 20 points, we're done. He is one guy we need to establish a post presence against Scola/Landry.
trying to establish that greg oden guy to force yao to worry about his man defensively might help the blazers as well.
I haven't noticed that our starters have played any better defense lately than earlier in the season. They had improved their offense by pushing the tempo quite a bit. Our bench stepped it up considerably on defense in the last few games of regular season though. Nate didn't give them a chance to continue that trend as he always had Roy or Blake in there playing the point and they walked it up the court rather than pass. The only time we didn't get outscored was the 3 minute stints when Sergio had the ball.
It is odd, as Blake is far better than Brooks in every single stat and quite a bit stronger than him also.
Yes... but LaMarcus has been our horse all season long as our No. 2 scorer behind Brandon. No way can we afford to have him not dominate his matchup and score just seven points, and think we have a chance of winning.
