Some of those were just plain lazyiness. Some were slow/poor rotation and not having any clue who the hottest player on the floor was. There were a couple that weren't bad and he just made very deep shots against a semi-decent close-out due to the depth of the shot. It's the 'lazy' ones that are the most infuriating.
one also can't help but think about how efficient barnes would be if it were a 6'10 All NBA defender closing out on him instead of a 6'3 Dame/CJ.
Guessing it would have made a dramatic difference. Would have likely slowed it down from the beginning and kept him from getting in a rhythm the rest of the game. Wouldn't have had nearly the confidence. Would also help Dame get better looks off the ball...where he is elite.
who. Slow down bro! Only two weak pros the player has. Stop the hyperbole! Everything else is a major neg!
Hyperbole? Runner up DPoY? Multi time all-star? 25 years old? Higher assist average than Dame for his career? Seems more like facts than hyperbole....but to each there own.
7 min mark or so: Question about why Chauncey has more practices upcoming this week after a grueling training camp: "we need to clean up our coverages and mistakes made, where so many times in the game, we aborted the mission and went back to what we knew from years prior. So you have to keep showing, talking, and harping on that and come in and walk through it. I know how seeing something and walking through it so many times, at some point it then becomes instinctive. Because the instincts that they have now, are the ones of what were there prior and that's what we're going away from." Sounds like old habits die hard.
https://www.theringer.com/nba/2021/...sions-2021-22-season-damian-lillard-ja-morant First paragraph is about our changes on defense.
It's like changing your diet. You want instant results and have no patience. Oooh wait, was this another joke post? Sheeeeeeit.... Spoiler Yes, I know it's not a joke post
I think the part about Nurk not moving the same since the injury is 100% true. The Beast Nurk has been in hibernation for a while. Hell, the Bubble Nurk hasn't been around either. We're getting the timid and soft Nurk. Part of me can't blame him, as that kind of injury HAS to have some kind of sports injury PTSD effect on him. It didn't happen to me and I cringe every single time he falls down (that's one game I wish I had never seen...that dangling foot still is burned into my brain). I had a bad wrist injury that happened to me when I was in middle school. I was playing basketball and my "friend" tripped me as I was defending him (like you "sweep the leg" kinda trip) and I landed full weight on my right wrist, bending it completely back. How I didn't do any severe damage I credit all my years of whackin....er, I mean, just dumb luck. But my right arm was useless for about a month because of it. Anyway, I was very anxious the next time I played basketball. Actually to this day, some 30+ years later, I still have fears of falling wrong and re-injuring it. Thankfully, I'm too old an lazy to play basketball anymore so it's not an issue, but I can totally notice I'm much more timid about doing things that potentially could cause that injury to re-occur. I'm heavier and far less flexible than I was as a 13 year old. (go ahead @THE HCP , I give you permission to make that joke)
While I do believe the Blazers need to improve defense to contend, trading Ben's D for CJ's O isn't the answer. There is a reason NBA offensive players are valued much more than NBA defensive players. There is a reason defensive player of the year Gobert regularly loses in the playoffs. Teams can instantly control who has the ball on offense, but on defense, they can't control who guards the ball. If CJ has a great matchup the Blazers can give him the ball. They can make that change in the fraction of a second on any play with a pass. If Simmons has a great defensive matchup the opponent can attack 4 other defenders every time down the court. The opponents offense can easily take Simmons defense out of the play with a quick pass in a way that an opponent cannot take an offensive player out of the play. Simmons lack of shooting will significantly hurt the Blazers offense, with him next to Dame we won't be a top5 offense. I'm not opposed to making trades or even trading CJ in the right deal, but it needs to be to either contend or rebuild. Getting Simmons at the cost of CJ accomplishes neither.
I saw this in there: "Starting center Jusuf Nurkic was an energetic bruiser before suffering a major leg injury in 2019. Now he moves like he’s lost. Whether he’s out of breath, physically limited, or unfamiliar with the scheme, Nurkic is not the same rim protector. Teams readily attack him, and he’s been outplayed by bigs like Ivica Zubac and Isaiah Hartenstein. Unless he can become that guy again, he should no longer be known as the Bosnian Beast."
I don't agree....that's just your theory, and the reality of your two examples doesn't fit well. Simmons is not the same player as Gobert, and CJ is not the same player as Dame or Curry or even Middleton the problem is that both Simmons and CJ are flawed players, but their flaws aren't equal, nor is their talent. And when you gauge their flaws and their talent against those of the Blazers is when your theory beaks down. We know that CJ does not get Portland close to over the hump to contention; 6 years is more than enough evidence. We don't know the same for Simmons again, absolute-peak CJ has been there for the starts of the last two seasons: 12 games last year and 3 games this year. Portland's record in those 15 games is 8-7. I'm convinced that absolute-peak Simmons would have given the Blazers a much better record over those 15 games
The best defensive teams lower their opponents’ scoring below the average by as much as the best offensive teams score above the average. So I think they are about equally important. Also on offense you can easily have duplication of roles. For example Steph, Klay, Durant had low duplication as two of them could create and all three could catch and shoot lights out. Whereas say Lebron and Wade were a huge duplication of value as both needed the one ball to be most effective and neither was ideal to shoot off the others’ creative ability. On defense there is little duplication. The more defenders the better. I guess on defense though it helps to not have even one weak link in the chain. All in all I think it’s a wash. So I think defense is routinely underrated.
I haven't look at the data, but I would assume the players we brought in this off-season have been historically better defenders than the ones who left. I would expect a slight uptick in defense for that reason alone. It will be interesting to see if Billups can make us into a top 10-15 defense like some of felt we should be all along.
I don’t buy it. Excluding this year, Nurk’s blocked shots, steals, rebounds are pretty much the same since his injury as before. This year his blocked shots are way down but it’s only three games and it may be the scheme not the injury.
They are better according to the data. But Nas is rated horribly defensively by advanced stats so that (if true) may offset some of our gains.
