Game Thread GAME# 41: CAVALIERS @ BLAZERS - JANUARY 11, 2017 - WEDNESDAY, 7:30 PM (PDT), ESPN & KGW

Discussion in 'Portland Trail Blazers' started by Darkwebs, Jan 10, 2017.

?

If you're in the Portland area, will you be/are you going to work Wednesday?

Poll closed Jan 11, 2017.
  1. Yes

    21.7%
  2. No

    69.6%
  3. Not sure yet

    8.7%
  1. Orion Bailey

    Orion Bailey Forum Troll

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    Best win of the year. Geez. feels like a Superman episode involving Bizzaro and his assbackwards world. We have just escaped Bizzaro world, found our footing and this is who we are? A team than can play legit 4 quarters and dominate the defending champs?

    No moves needed. Just play like this and we have a ring! ;)

    On the serious though. This gamer tweaked my biggest concern about this roster. It is no longer any one player ( Meyers better get his shit together though, so we get some value out of him) the biggest concern is consistency. What is preventing us from playing like this every night? Is it ALL just in the head? Levels, like Dame claims? If so, then they need to play at this higher level more often. Period.
     
  2. Orion Bailey

    Orion Bailey Forum Troll

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    I think Someone said that Aminu was the answer to our defensive woes?
    I think his name was @KingSpeed
    I think the games are showing he was right!
    I think for all the shit he gets for homerism, he has an astounding eye for this team and who can take us to what levels.

    Way to go King!
     
  3. TBpup

    TBpup Writing Team

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    Aminu's return has help but they were playing terrible defense before he went out so it can't all be just him. Stotts finally decided to implement a more aggressive defense instead of just sitting back and letting teams do whatever they wanted. Glad he did that....just wonder why he waited so long?
     
  4. Orion Bailey

    Orion Bailey Forum Troll

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    He was racked with injuries before he went down. I don't think he played many games at 100% except the very beginning of the season where we were winning.
    The best defensive schemes utilize and optimize your best defenders. Aminu is our best defender, so no matter what Stotts did, his return was invaluable to our defense.
     
  5. BBert

    BBert Weasels Ripped My Flesh

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    He's an asset. When they rush out to double Dame or pressure him bringing the ball up, he just flips it to Turner before the defense gets set and away we go.

    :cheers:
     
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  6. BBert

    BBert Weasels Ripped My Flesh

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    Now we could use a healthy Festus....
     
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  7. blue9

    blue9 Well-Known Member

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    Exactly - the increase in defense is 95% due to the massive change in defensive philosophy that Stotts FINALLY implemented. It just happened to roughly correspond to Aminu's return. Correlation does not equal causation.
     
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  8. Orion Bailey

    Orion Bailey Forum Troll

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    You guys dont hold any correlation to Aminus return helping the implementation of such a plan? Meaning you guys think the plan would have worked regardless?
    Sometimes plans are based around what you have to work with. With Aminu back the new plan can be implemented and be much more successful than when he was out?
    I can see that connection.
     
  9. TBpup

    TBpup Writing Team

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    Of course it works much better WITH Aminu but when he was playing healthy before, the defense was still very poor. The change was WAY overdue and Aminu coming back helped make a better strategy work....better.
     
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  10. Orion Bailey

    Orion Bailey Forum Troll

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    When Aminu was healthy before. Completely tiny sample size. What 5-6 games? Very early in the season with Turner also trying to adjust? Not a fair take in my opinion.
     
  11. TBpup

    TBpup Writing Team

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    Fair enough....yet some are giving credence for almost the same short time period for these better defensive results.
     
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  12. Orion Bailey

    Orion Bailey Forum Troll

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    True too. I suppose time will tell? Man I hope we are both wrong and the right answer is we don't know, don't care, just keep doing what we did last night! lol
     
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  13. Wizard Mentor

    Wizard Mentor Wizard Mentor

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    greedy bastard!!!
     
  14. BBert

    BBert Weasels Ripped My Flesh

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    Yes. Yes I am.
     
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  15. Nikolokolus

    Nikolokolus There's always next year

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    I'm much more interested in their points per possession than raw points per game. Anybody know how to quickly look that up? (I'd do it, but work beckons).
     
  16. Strenuus

    Strenuus Global Moderator Staff Member Global Moderator

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    Be consitent... Then ill take notice. Not enough of a sample size.


    In b4 kingspeed 5 game sample size. I need more.
     
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  17. BonesJones

    BonesJones https://www.youtube.com/c/blazersuprise

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    The funny thing is, I got a lot of hate for saying that I would be a better coach them Stotts only because I'd implement these defensive schemes. I got a lot of hate when I said Stotts needed to be fired if he didn't switch his defensive schemes.

    Well look at that...
     
  18. riverman

    riverman Writing Team

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    duh
     
  19. BlazerDuckSeahawkFan94

    BlazerDuckSeahawkFan94 AWOL

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    18-0! Get it done Neil
     
  20. Boob-No-More

    Boob-No-More Why you no hire big man coach?

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    Basketball-reference.com includes DRtg, both individual and team. as part of their advanced box scores. DRtg is defined as points per 100 possessions.

    For the season, our team DRtg is currently at 112.0 - which is 29th of 30 teams.

    Although the tweet, mentions the last 8 games, I'm going to include the TOR game, as that's when the defensive schemes and improvement started.

    Here's a list of our opponents and team DRtg for the last 9 games:

    TOR - 96.6
    SAC - 96.3
    SAS - 119.2
    MIN - 93.8
    GSW - 120.1
    LAL - 110.8
    DET - 113.0
    LAL - 93.1
    CLE - 92.2
    Nine Game Average Team DRtg = 103.9

    As you can see, this is a work in progress and we're still a bit inconsistent. And, while a DRtg rating of 103.9 may not, at first glance look impressive, in today's NBA it actually is - very impressive. Here's a list of the top 4 defensive teams in the league (for the season to date):

    SAS - 104.1
    GSW - 104.2
    MEM - 104.3
    UTA - 104.4

    9 games is a relatively small sample size, so it's yet to be seen if the team can maintain this level of defense for the remainder of the season. There are bound to be comments about the quality of our opponents over that 9 game stretch, but keep in mind, 4 of our 9 opponents during that stretch are among the top 5 offensive teams in the league, and even MIN is 10th in the league in ORtg.

    Here's a look at our last nine opponents and their ORtg (for the season to date):

    TOR - 115.4
    SAC - 107.4
    SAS - 112.9
    MIN - 109.2
    GSW - 115.9
    LAL - 107.0
    DET - 106.1
    LAL - 107.0
    CLE - 112.9
    Nine Game Average OPP Seasonal ORtg = 110.4

    The league average ORtg is 108.0. A team DRtg of 110.4 would be good for 8th of 30 teams.

    For the last nine games, our average DRtg of 103.9, if sustainable, would rank us among the best defenses in the league. Furthermore, for those nine games, our opponents, as a group, have been much better than league average offensive teams.

    In other words, we are playing great defense, and we're not doing it against a bunch of chumps. We are, in general terms, holding some very good offensive teams well below their seasonal average offensive output.

    BNM
     

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