Game Thread Game #5 BLAZERS VS. CLIPPERS - OCTOBER 29, 2021 - FRIDAY, 7:00 PM, ROOT SPORTS

I hate when his negative reputation makes it so people ignore when he's playing really good defense. I'll also never understand why people have such a negative bias towards Blazers players that they ignore what's actually happening and make up false, ridiculous statements to fit it. Example, the "He scores ONLY with the ball and after 12 seconds of juke, juke, drive (head down) spin and shoot." statement.

 

We played 3 games against top 10 offenses from last year, and the average ORTG of our opponents is 114.8, which would've been good enough for the 8th best offense. I don't know why you would ignore that too go for a much smaller sample of which more than 25% is against the Blazers as if our defense didn't have an affect on those teams offensive ratings. Also, we didn't defend well home or road last year so that shouldn't be used to downplay us being at 6.

This team is showing prior that they're not as limited defensively as some people think.

 

We look way better defensively to me.

It is a small sample though. To put the sample size into perspective: Relative to an average defense we are 7.0 PPG or 35 total points better than last year. That means we’d have to give up 122 points in the next two games to put us right back on pace with the shit defense we had last year. Unlikely, but within the realm of possibility.

Other factors:
1. We’ve played against above average offenses.
2. Our offense is a poorly oiled machine. New players. New system. High turnovers. Has hurt our defense.
3. We’ve only played this style of defense for five games!
4. We have two young players playing a lot of minutes who have historically been bad defenders. They’re learning and improving.

So lots of room for our defense to get even better. I’m optimistic.

 

Second game in a row where the opponent was held to 40 points or less in a half. That's excellent defense for decent stretches.

 

He was 9years under same coach, not really in any complicated system. He will have to adjust. And maybe he is in some kind of slump as well.
But "worrying" about him?
I mean, I can not wait how this team will crush opponents, when Dame will come back to his normal.
But "worrying"? Lol

 

That was perfect defense right there. Powell and Dame half way out in the corner to take that away and then the guarding against PG was excellent and Powell didn't commit until Pg committed on the pass to his big then came over for the block.

 

Defense is coming still see a lot hands down but overall it's hard contest a shot when you're 6'3 and 6'2 on likes of PG. The big thing is they didn't have a lot 2nd chance attempt against so we held the one and out a lot. Protecting are defense boards is big for our defense to be good.

 

Did Nassir Little make the jump many people were hoping for? I think so.
Simons shot poorly but he very easily could have dropped 20-24 points last night. They were good looks that we know he can make. I think his shooting night was the difference between beating them by 19 and blowing them out.
The Clippers were without three solid players though. Just adding Leonard changes this game completely. Even more so when you think the Blazers allowed George to score at will. I don't see the Blazers with a way to stop the Clippers with Kawhi.
So maybe we should just be happy this team is progressing nicely. Remember They also have Ibaka and Morris on the bench injured.
Blazers still have their work cut out for them. If the Clippers were healthy i would not have called this game a win from the beginning.

 

Sorry folks. Yes I'm happy they have won some games. I'm just not buying all the hype in here just yet. Lets see where they stand after this road trip.

 

Very sensible.

 

I just think guys are happy that we’ve already had more games played with good defense 5 games into the season than we did all of last year.

Also we’ve won 3 of 5 games against good opponents with Dame playing mostly like crap. Last year we would be 0-5.

 

Questionable wins IMO. Suns on a B2B, Clippers without three starters. I feel the Memphis game was a good showing.
Remember they also got run out of the gym by the same Clippers team that cut their 22 point lead to 4 points. They let George who was the only real threat on the court to drop 42 on them in 34 minutes.
Let see what they do on the road?

 

last year is over and done with. Blazers don't have the same defense as last year...right?

and teams don't have the same offenses as last season, especially not this early. All I was doing by using past ratings was pointing at how defenses usually start the season ahead of the offenses

again, has no relevance at all to THIS season...all 5 games of it

only one team has a rating as good as your 114.8. Here are the offensive ratings of Portland's opponents

112.5 (memphis)
108.9 (kings)
105.6 (suns)
101.5 (clips)
101.5 (clips)

that is an 'average' of 106 which would rank 20th. This year's Blazer defense can only play against the teams on the schedule. They haven't played the offense of last year's Clippers, twice, but the offense of this years Clippers and that offense is 16.1 points worse than last season. The Suns' offense is 14.6 points worse

if you want to make an argument that one reason those teams rank that low is because they faced the Blazer defense...ok, that carries a little weight.

I explained above why, but for fuck sakes, everybody is talking about the defensive rating from the 5 game sample size, so it sure as hell seems germane to me to talk about the offenses from that 5 game sample size. That's who that defensive rating was posted against. It's also especially germane to gauge for sample size because as bobf pointed out, one bad game can knock the Blazers rating into the bottom half of the league

you seem to think I'm dismissing the defensive improvement. I'm not. In fact, last night was the first time I have moved to fairly impressed with the defense because it was the most consistent I've seen it. Very few major breakdowns other than the first 4 minutes when the Clips had several wide open looks from three.

Dame and CJ are actually helping set the tone with their effort and execution. Dame played extremely good defense on Morant; that really surprised me because while Dame has always been pretty good at defending larger players, he's generally been a sieve when it comes to speed and screens..and Ja has plenty of speed (I do think it was asking too much for CJ to defend PG13 last night; fortunately, that didn't happen for all of PG's minutes)

The Clippers clanged a ton of bricks last night for sure. A lot of their 53 misses last night didn't occur against tight defense. But sometimes, the purpose of a good defense is to knock a team out of rhythm and I think the Blazers clearly had the Clips out-of-sync

personally, entering the season, I had more concern with Portland's rebounding than with their defense. But the Blazers are 10th in offensive rebounding and 4th in defensive rebounding. being 4th in defensive rebounding certainly helps their defense because teams are much more vulnerable after an offensive rebound. But again, except for Memphis, Portland has played poor offensive rebounding teams

 

the 3 seconds where Nurkic jumped the soft screen and contested Jackson and the ball was a real departure from the Stotts defense that almost always would have had Nurkic hedge back into the paint

 

Obviously the sample size is small and the variances will be sizable. But when was the last time after just 5 games that a Portland team ranked in the top 10 in defense? I mean last season’s team put a huge emphasis on defense on came out of the gates shitty. It’s quite impressive that with a new coaching staff and philosophy that this team came out to 6th, even if it’s only been 5 games.