Golden State's next 2 games are against Toronto & OKC. Those are losable. Our next two are against Atlanta and Lakers, both winnable. If we win both and they lose both.... trail blazers 28-7 warriors 25-7 That gives a great chance to get Stotts in as coach of the All Star game and Lillard/Aldridge would most certainly voted in by the coaches.
It would be so awesome if this happens, since it would mean we'd be going into our next game on TNT with the best record. Kinda curious how Shaq's "analysis" of the best team in the west will be if blazers are at the top suddenly..
why are the Blazer games both "winnable" but the Warriors games are both "lose-able"? Atlanta is a good team, top 3 team in the Eastern Conference. Portland barely beat the Raptors. And in your mind, what probably makes the Warriors games, games they can lose is because they lost to the Lakers recently...who is playing Portland soon. Both Portland games are potential L's, as much as they are potential W's.
Perspective. Ive got to admit, Im getting excited about our team. We barely beat the Raptors but we are winning games we wouldnt have a year or two ago and winning in many different ways. The GS game got away from us earlier and it has really stuck with me, I assume its the same for the Blazers and might prove to be a early turning point for us.
Indeed. We barely beat the Raptors with No Rolo, Bad Wright, Bad Lillard (which is still good but...), Bad Batum, Bad Matthews... British Bulldog, Kaveman, and L-Train kept us alive long enough to accidentally make enough shots to win. When we can beat a Top-5 team when our shot isn't falling? That's legitimate cause for optimism.
I almost feel like if even half our players are on or "good" we would probably blow out most teams. It has been said before I really dont think we have seen this teams best offense so far. Im just not sure how teams can hope to guard us if Dame, Nic/Wes and LMA are on. Too many weapons and not enough players to defend them. Unfortunately we havent seen a lot of those games this year and fortunately we have learned how to win anyway and are gaining nothing but confidence and growth as a team from it as our weakness last year (defense) is actually winning us games this year. We held one the top scoring teams in the leagues under 100 point in an overtime game. Optimism is earned and deserved.
And we're doing it in an unusual (and in my opinion unusually sustainable) way; most defensive teams will cause a bunch of turnovers, or block a ton of shots. We do two things really well: we force teams to step in from the three point line and take a long two-pointer (our opponents lead the league in 2pt shots attempted), and we make you take difficult versions of your shot, which are more likely to miss (our opponents are lowest in 3P% at 29.1% and 3rd lowest in 2P% at 46.3%). We don't have to get a ton of steals or block a ton of shots if we're pestering you into a bad shot. It's not one hero blocking shots; it's all the guys being pests.
I think Portland is 7th in blocks, only .9 worse than the league leader (Golden State). They don't force turnovers (If I'm reading the stats page correctly), but I think thats because they don't gamble on steals. I'd rather force the team to take a bad shot, than try to steal the ball.
They are top 10 in blocks, but 27th in steals. Without Rolo, our blocks have been fewer, but our defense is still just as good. It's an interesting bit, where some statistics "moneyball" guys think steals are the most valuable stat in the game, but we're proving them wrong right now.
The take away here for me is that the players have a chance to get their coach into the all star game. They need to do that.
I wonder do we foul teams less or more than average since we are playing tough defense instead of going for steals and blocks more? In others words does it save fouls and therefor points ultimately? And keep our players from fouling more which means they can play longer and dont foul out. Have we had a player foul out this year? Maybe once or twice. It is an interesting strategy I hadnt thought about if that is the case Edit: http://www.teamrankings.com/nba/stat/personal-fouls-per-game We are 7th lowest in the league at committing team fouls
We are 6th in lowest FTs per FGA, so we have a reputation for not fouling. Which is why the Toronto game seemed so out of hand; they have a reputation for getting to the line a lot (5th in the league in FTs per FGA).
Yeah, steals are nice, but they are not the best barometer of good defense. Forcing guys to go to the side they don't want to go to, making them shoot something other than their favorite shot, and making them take a shot later in the shot clock, is going to pay dividends more often than not.
So we are saving points from free throws and gaining minutes played from key players by staying out of foul trouble which helps keep our rotation intact and keeping the flow of the game good. The more I look at it and think about it the smarter it is looking.
It looks like it shouldn't work on paper: without disrupting an offense with steals, how do you keep them from making shots at their normal rate? Positioning. Remember that perfect defensive play against Houston last year where Harden was driving, and Joel Freeland jumped out to cut off the drive, without getting near Harden to cause the foul, which basically confused Harden into backing up and taking a bad mid-range jumper? We do stuff like this all the time. We funnel guys into slots where the post players know they'll be, then let them go to work with straight-up jumping and blocks. Rolo, LA, and Freeland have reputations for getting hands on balls instead of arms, and we get a lot of mileage off of that. Funnel and block. Funnel and poke out of bounds. I'd love to know what percentage of shots our opponents have to take with time running out in the shot clock because we stymied their first play and knocked the ball out of bounds with 2 seconds on the clock.
It also helps that LA is one of the best on-ball post defenders in the league. It wears him out, which is why we don't do it often, but he stopped Howard cold in stretches last year.
