Why? What is your definition of "a guy who can score"? It certainly isn't Mo Williams. 9 ppg per game (13 per 36) on 11 PER and sub 40% shooting. Uh-may-zing.
Who said the starters don't want to score? Who said they're tired? Lots of great players play big minutes. Bench wasn't good tonight but they weren't the problem. It was first half defense and turnovers. I do like PapaG's idea of running plays for CJ. Get him some confidence.
I think our starters are already spent. They need a break. Neil said last year that he wished he would have fixed the bench to help support the starters. I hope he follows his own advice before the trade deadline.
Eric do you understand how unbelievably horrible 6 points from the bench is? Washington got 26 points from their bench. You guys are talking about turnovers, but their bench outscored our bench by 20 points. That's insane.
Mo wasn 't our problem in this game. you want to blame the bench? what did McCollum, Robinson contributed lately, you say it's on Mo - newsflash, they're not that good. Our bench is not perfect in terms of playing with each other, it will get better, but it's not really playing 5, then 2nd five, we're gonna start shuffling our lineups, giving minutes for guys like CJ, Robinson only to rest the starters, I think we should get creative in what types of lineups we're playing out of our rop 8, I think we need to rest Nico, bring him back healthy in three weeks, bring him back hungry also. In the meantime have the other players do some defense, they're too used to watching Batum do it one on 5, there's a lot to win from this but first of all we need to agree we're not letting injured players play, especially if they're essential to our success.
I said the bench wasn't good tonight. But they weren't why we lost. Turnovers by STARTERS in first half. And then at the end, Washington was missing everything and Lillard/Batum/Matthews couldn't hit shots.
When Mo is on the floor, CJ et al hardly even TOUCH the ball? I wish they kept a stat on dribbles per possession. Mo would lead the league. Most of his coming of the useless variety where he neither moves forward or backward. Just laterally to a horrible shot attempt.
Mo played 25 minutes tonight. He went 2-8 from the floor, 3 boards, 2 assists, 3 personal fouls and 2 turnovers. Freeland played 12 minutes. CJ played 10.5 minutes. TRob played 6 minutes. Mo is by far the bigger part of the problem because he plays so much. Robinson is barely even part of the rotation at this point.
I don't know if it's a "bench" issue as much as it's a "coach" issue. Starters: 186 minutes. Mo: 25 minutes. 2-8, 3 reb, 2 ast, 1 stl. Every other dude on the bench: 29 minutes. 1-6, 9 reb, 2 blk, 1 ast, 2 to.
The starters couldn't hit shots because they're exhausted. You can't count on them to carry the scoring load through 4 quarters.
As I said before when people were praising Olshey and wanting to give him a lifetime contract It's not hard to go from bad to a playoff team. The hard part is going from a playoff team to being a real contender. Despite their record, the Blazers are not a real contender right now. Way too flawed. Olshey needs to take lessons from the Seahawks and learn how to build depth
