The Blazers will most likely never have another player who can score 83% of his swish3s (G4 first half against GSW) as he did more than once. It would sure be great to have Meyers back next year. Meyers was at the game today!
The Blazers decisively won the swish3 contest in Playoff Game 1 scoring 13 of 34 (38.2%) vs LAL 5 of 32 (15.6%) in the Aug 18 win 100-93! This was a game led by the Blazers with much better shooting but out-rebounded 50-55. The officiating was biased in favor of LAL with many fouls of Blazers not called (like Dame being pushed out of bounds and being called for traveling in the 4th Q) but 5 fouls on 4 Blazers. Dame led scoring 6 of 13, CJ scored 3 of 8, Melo scored 2 of 5, Nurk scored 1 of 2, and Gary scored 1 of 4. Mario was 0 of 2. This game showed the superiority of the Blazers over LAL in swish3 shooting, and that strategy should be featured in the remaining games in this series to advance to the next round! Let's aim to increase swish3 scoring to 15+ each game!
As noted in my Sat (Aug 15) quote above, it would be great to have another NBA leading swish3 shooter in the person of Meyers to make scoring 45+ pts as swish3s each game something to rely on.
The Blazers decisively lost the swish3 contest Aug 20 in Playoff Game 2 scoring only 8 of 29 vs LAL 14 of 38 in the 88-111 loss. This was a terrible letdown game in which Dame was injured in the 3rd Q and we threw in the towel, but several bench players were included. The Blazers did not play this game with determination, as shown by being out-rebounded 41-50, several inept turnovers, and many missed shots, especially from our usually reliable swish3 scorers. In this aberrant game, Simons led scoring 2 of 3, Gary scored 2 of 4, Nurk scored 1 of 3, Wenyen scored 1 of 4, CJ scored 1 of 5, and Dame scored 1 of 7. Melo was 0 of 1 and Adams was 0 of 2. Melo was only 1 of 6 (16.7%) for FG! This was a bottom performance night when LAL was hitting shots. Team FG% was only 40 for Blazers vs 47.8 for LAL. Blazers had only 14 assists vs LAL 26 and had 17 Turnovers vs LAL 14. The Blazers can beat LAL 3 more times, but will need the 15+ swish3 scores, driving scores by Dame and CJ, and paint points including ORB by Nurk and Hassan and Wenyen, coupled with determined defense and minimized TOV. Let's imagine it for Saturday! Go Blazers!!!
The Blazers won the swish3 contest Aug 22 in Playoff Game3 scoring 12 of 35 vs LAL 10 of 30 in the 108-116 loss. This game was officiated strongly favoring LAL who had 43 FTA vs Blazers 19. Blazers and LAL each had 39 made FG, but Blazers scored 18 FT vs LAL 28, and that 10 point advantage was more than the final score margin. In the 1st half, the refs kept LAL in the game with an grossly unbalanced number of foul calls. Davis was going to the line way too many times! Dame led scoring 5 of 11, CJ scored 4 of 12, Melo scored 2 of 3, and Gary scored 1 of 3. Nurk was 0 of 1, Mario was 0 of 2, and Simons was 0 of 3. The Blazers were out-rebounded 38-55 and had only 17 assists vs LAL 26. The foul bias and the foul fear seemed to insert the refs especially in the 3rd Q to eliminate the 57-54 half-time lead and damage the attempt to recover in the 4th Q. The Blazers need an evenly called game for the chance to win more games!
The Blazers lost Playoff Game4 Aug 24 scoring 12 of 28 vs LAL 17 of 39 in the 115-135 loss. For the first 8 min of the game, EVERY foul called was against the Blazers in this outrageously biased officiating game. In this game like no NBA game that I have seen, the refs took deterministic control calling fouls on the Blazers while failing to call fouls on LAL that gave an early 15-0 LAL lead in that time frame and built to a 30-10 lead. The refs held the Blazers down with fouls and fear of fouls and failure to call fouls that kept the Blazers down the entire game. Calling a bunch of fouls in the 4th Q only served to even the final FTA count. This game was a travesty in which the Blazers did not have a chance. In addition, Dame suffered a right leg injury in the 3rd Q that ended his time in the game. The officiating was so bad that there were 3 technical fouls called on the Blazers for making comments on egregious missed calls! Gary led scoring 3 of 6, Mario scored 2 of 2, CJ scored 2 of 3, Hassan and Wenyen each scored 1 of 1, Dame scored 1 of 2, Hoard scored 1 of 2, Simons scored 1 of 4, and Melo scored 1 of 6. Nurk was 0 of 1 and Adams was 0 of 2. LAL has a talented team and LeBron and LeDavis both played well. The NBA needs to remove the game control by refs bias to allows us to see how well LAL fares against the Blazers in an evenly called game. Do they have the courage to do so, or are the accusations of ref bias to insure that LAL wins as true as is evident?
The Blazers lost the swish3 contest in Playoff Game5 Aug 29 scoring 13 of 27 vs LAL 14 of 36 in the 122-131 loss. In this game without Dame, the Blazers showed some fight with several leads of up to 6 pts and tying at 100 and 109 before the 4th Q 11 pt run by LeDavis. Melo and Simons led each scoring 3 of 4, CJ and Gary each scored 3 of 7, and Nurk scored 1 of 4. Mario was 0 of 1. This was a high scoring game which was tied at 68 at the half, but the Blazers did not score any swish3s in the 3rd Q and fell behind. Although the distribution of scoring of swish3s is excellent, the Blazers need more players than 8 against a top seeded team.
Do you really think they lost the 3 point contest , when they shot so much more efficiently? Maybe they needed more layups and dunks?
Maybe they do need more three-point shooters, though. I would like to see a team where every guy can shoot the three efficiently but also make cuts to the basket, catch a pass and finish strong!
