There is something fundamentally wrong with this team. They are incapable of sustaining success. "Hey, if we win tonight, they will expect us to win tomorrow too! Who needs that kind of pressure?"
Yup. Every Blazers team is jammed with evil, lazy people who don't want to win. Every year, the Blazers could win the championship, if only they cared more and were mentally tough (not afraid of the pressure of winning). I think you're onto something.
I don't think anybody here would say that the Blazers don't have some shortcomings with their roster. They have to play hard and with confidence every night to win. Some nights, like last night, they just can't seem to get it together. This happens to all teams in the NBA (witness what's happened in the way of unexpected losses for the Heat and Lakers this year), but the better and more experienced the roster, the less frequently it happens. I guess the thing I don't get with some people around here is the crazy over-reaction when the Blazers hit one of these road bumps. Me, I cuss them out during the game, bay at the moon afterwards, and then calm down and realize that at best this team is going to win 60% of its games the rest of the season. There's absolutely nothing that can be done to correct the deficiencies in the roster until summer. There's little that can be done to cure the inconsistency of the outside shooters on this team...they are who they are. Nate can, and should, use this as a teaching tool to get the younger guys to realize that they have to bring it every night, but still there are going to be nights like last night. You either accept that or get your doctor to up your blood pressure meds.
See! Now that you are no longer weighed down by mod responsibilities, you are starting to come around!
At least we have the potential to be scary. That's a level that only the top 8-10 teams have. It's a hell of a lot better than being the Timberwolves.
Fair enough. It still leaves the question of *why* the team can't sustain a high level of play. With Roy and Camby back, and Wallace on board, the fatigue/lack of depth argument no longer flies. It is now beginning to look like the problem is strictly between the ears.
It's because they're not talented enough to be a top-5 team. You can't take an individual's or team's best and claim that that's what they should be all the time if they just tried hard. Performance has variance...sometimes you play somewhat above your level, sometimes below. The reason a guy like Carmelo Anthony or Joe Johnson can have games that are equivalent to Kobe Bryant but can't sustain that level is not effort...it's talent. It takes Kobe Bryant talent to play like Kobe Bryant all the time. Lesser talents can hit that level once in a while, but not all the time. The Blazers are good enough to sometimes play like a top team, but not good enough to always play at a top level. The Lakers or Celtics are the team equivalent to Kobe Bryant...the Blazers are the team equivalent to someone like Joe Johnson (or even Carmelo Anthony). Good, maybe very good, but not capable of sustaining elite play.
Again, fair enough. Where we part company is this: A) It appears to me that the *effort* displayed on defense is inconsistent. This isn't "Matthews can't guard Wade 1-on-1", this is "is anybody even guarding that guy?" B) Sometimes the Blazers show good ball movement, other times they look like wooden indians. That isn't about talent - that is about focus/commitment to the game plan.
Hmm. To me, both can be about either. By and large, I think professional athletes work extremely hard. There are some who seem more like cruise mentality, but I, personally, don't get that vibe about any of the regulars currently on the Blazers. So I generally default to talent, not effort. Inconsistent defense and ball movement can definitely be about ability. Both are simple matters of effort at low levels, but become more complicated at the NBA level. I mean, obviously the team could just pass it around the perimeter for 20 seconds, but that isn't meaningful ball movement. Meaningful ball movement, the kind that creates easier shots, is tougher and talent-based. Losing a guy on defense can either be not caring enough to get on him, or screwing up defensive rotations or getting fooled. Both the latter two I consider talent-based, as it takes some instinctive understanding of the flow of defense not to let that happen. I'm not saying that they are definitely playing their hardest. I don't know them and I think it's not possible to know for sure just from watching. My guess would be that they are, but the talent is such that they're probably between a top ten and top fifteen team in the league but can sometimes look better (top-five) or worse (not a playoff team).
I made a post in another thread that offered my opinion as to why: We're a good team, not a great one. For example, the Spurs are a great team. One of the things that make the Spurs great is when they have you down, they step on your neck until you quit. Bad teams they generally put away in the first quarter, which means that team gives up and you get to play at 80% for 3/4 of the game. It's a lot easier on a team than playing at 100% to the level of your competition. We're simply not good enough to be able to do it consistently.
