CBS Sports: "Pick and roll defense is Blazers' biggest weakness"

One of problems is Stotts defense scheme. There other problem is our guards quit when they get screen. Alot times they have time force dribbler out where the screen is not effective and this can be taught through practice.

 

Another national guy completely forgetting how good Ezeli was at defending the P&R. He's going to fit semlessly into Stotts' strategy.

 

Seems like a pretty good analysis of last year's team. The acquisitions of Turner and Ezeli should both help significantly, but he's right that Dame and CJ both have to improve at fighting through screens. Hopefully, another year of experience and a dedication to improving will push them to make a leap this year.

 

Can we please find a way to avoid switching all the time and ending up with Dame on Dirk or Durant?

 

CJ McCollum Focused On Defensive Improvement
http://www.blazersedge.com/2016/8/7/12400012/cj-mccollum-defense-improvement-off-season

 

CJ commits his mind to everything he tries. This is encouraging. I think he can be at least average next season.

With Turner, Aminu, and Ezeli, that would make us a top 10 defense

 

yep, that's the hope. If it works out that we're a top 10 defense and a top 5 or 6 offense, we're a contender.

 

Do

You forgot Mo? How could you be so harkless?

 

Wrote about Blazer weakness, so this writer is garbage

 

Yet it gets more likes than any post in this thread? #tired

 

I was just mentioning starters

 

No. The difference is he studied what he was talking about and used relevant stats to back up his opinion.

 

Mind sharing the link to what you wrote about the Blazers weaknesses?

 

I believe you have said more than once you don't think Stotts is a championship level coach.

 

You guys don't get MM's sense of humor at all sometimes....his post made me chuckle

 

Can't really disagree with what he wrote about the Blazers. Defense, in particular our pick and roll defense, was our biggest weakness last year. Yes, it got better over the second half of the season, but it was exposed again in the playoffs, against both LAC and GSW.

The good news is that's common knowledge. We know it, the author knows it, Terry, Neil and the players know it, too. The good news is the people that can actually do something about it seem to be taking actions to improve our biggest weakness. Adding Turner and Ezeli will help. So, will individual players working hard to improve on defense. And, if we can improve our biggest weakness to where it's at least above average, we can make another step forward.

BNM

 

How many wins did he predict last season?

 

I did find the article a little uneven. For some teams, he went into great detail with stats, charts and videos to support his points.

For other teams, he just seemed to mail it in:

"Los Angeles Clippers

• WEIRD PLAYOFF EXITS

They were emotionally drained and couldn't take down the Oklahoma City Thunder in the second round of the 2014 playoffs after bouncing the Warriors in the middle of the Donald Sterling scandal. They surprised everybody by beating the San Antonio Spurs in 2015 before collapsing in the next round after going up 3-1 on the Rockets. This past postseason, Chris Paul and Blake Griffin both suffered series-ending injuries in Game 4 against the Portland Trail Blazers after being up 2-1 in the series. They were bounced in six games.

Stop losing in weird ways, Clippers. Also, Chuck the Condor probably has to go."

What are you supposed to do with that. Ditch the mascot and tell your players not to get injured at the wrong time?

A better analysis would have been to discuss their lack of depth. This has been a problem for the Clippers for years, but it is somewhat masked by Jamal Crawford, once again, winning the 6th man of the year. You would think with the "best" 6th man in the league, you'd have a good bench. They don't, and Crawford may have won the award, but he is nowhere near the best 6th man in the league and nowhere near the player he was even just two seasons prior (when he also won the award, and at least kinda, sorta maybe might have deserved it).

It's interesting that the only advanced stats basketball-reference includes in their 6th man of the year voting page are Win Shares and Win Shares/48. Yeah, it's hard to capture a player's impact in a single stat, but you'd think the player people voted as the best 6th man in the league would at least have respectable advanced stats. Crawford didn't. Of the top 8 vote getters, Crawford had the worst WS and WS/48. Compared to some other 6th men (Enes Kanter and Dale Davis), Crawford's production was woefully insufficient. But, he's a volume scorer with a reputation as one of the best 6th men in the league, so voters evidently didn't bother to look at how inefficient his scoring was and how little he contributed in other ways.

If you sort the 2016 SMOY vote getters by WS, Crawford comes in 16th. If you sort them by WS/48, he's 17th.

It's not like he totally sucks, but at this point in his career he is an inefficient high volume chucker. He's always been a high volume chucker, but his efficiency has taken a substantial hit the last two years. At this point, he's an average 6th man. He just looks good, because outside of the Clippers best 4 starters, they seriously lack quality players. In fact, while he's technically a 6th man, Crawford was 3rd on the team in minutes played. Part of that was due to injuries, but it also speaks to their lack of depth.

Luc Mbah a Moute, with a PER = 7.3 had the second lowest PER of any player in the league that started at least 50 games. His pitiful production made Noah Vonleh look like a quality starter. The difference being, the Clippers didn't have any better options, and as we saw late in the year and during the playoffs, the Blazers had much better players they could start in place of the 20-year old Vonleh.

The Clippers tried to address their lack of depth last off season by bringing in veterans like Paul Pierce, Josh Smith, Lance Stevenson, Cole Aldrich and later Jeff Green. Aldrich is the only one who played well. Smith and Stevenson didn't even make it through the season. Green and Aldrich are gone, and if Paul Pierce hasn't retired, he should. He only played because of Blake Griffin's injury and was just as bad as Mbah a Moute. They had a shallow bench to begin with and it has gotten worse (and older).

And, this ties into the author's point about losing in the playoffs in "weird" ways. Maybe, if they didn't rely so heavily on their 4 best players, they wouldn't blow 3-1 series leads and get injured so much during the post season. And, it's not just a minutes thing, it's what those players are asked to do during those minutes. Chris Paul always has the ball in his hands on offense when he's in the game, and with the number of great PGs in the West, he's also going all out on defense on every play at the other end. He simply can't take plays off at either end if the Clippers hope to win. All that wear and tear eventually catches up with them.

At this point, they have 4 quality starters and a horribly thin bench - and DeAndre Jordan is the only one of those 4 starters that seems to be reasonably durable. Unless they add some significant depth, they will continue to lose in "weird" ways when it matters most.

BNM