http://blog.oregonlive.com/behindblazersbeat/2009/02/taking_offense_to_the_blazers.html Read it. It will help all of us get some perspective.
I think the most telling thing for me is Pritchard's comments ... I love what KP has been able to accomplish in a short amount of time, but If he thinks this roster is going to cut it defensively then I'm starting to get an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. I wonder if the reason Nate hemmed and hawed about signing a contract extension last summer (and also played coy when Gavin Dawson talked to him about this week) is that he and KP have fairly substantial differences of opinion on the right mix of personnel.
Um, not that I generally agree with Quick...but he's getting chippier as the team's playing worse. "Sputtering and Stammering" Nate? Talking about "his voice raising" and printing the "what do you do?" rhetorical comments. Then he goes up and down the roster calling out just about every rotation player other than Joel and LMA. "Roy's 'ole' defense"? Wow. And I hate talking bad about an injured guy, but someone really needs to explain to me what Quick sees about Blake doing a single thing differently on defense than Sergio or JBay. Sergio's PERAgainst: 14.9 Blake's? 15.3. Sergio's eFG% Against: 43.9. Blake's? 45.1 Sergio's Ast/TO Against: 7.4/3.2 (2.4:1) Blake's? 8.6/3.9 (2.2:1) Just a cherry-picked sampling b.c I'm too lazy to keep going, but you can check 82games.com to tell me if you think you see something that busts the trend.
I was responding to the part where Quick got Roy to almost admit it was the rookie PG and C's fault, they talked about Blake's injurt, and then Nate said that "without Blake, it magnifies everything". My contention is: "No, it actually doesn't. The thing Steve does best is shoot open threes and not make offensive mistakes that often. Defense isn't in his top 10 of 'Things Blake does well', yet it sounds like Nate and Quick are trying to pin our defensive woes on Steve's shoulder. But I could be reading it wrong. I'm slightly biased about our D and effort.
...yet only two teams have more efficient offenses. The Lakers and the Cavs, the two best teams in the league.
When we win, our efficiency is at 120.6 (L*kers average 111, and they lead the league) In our losses, our efficiency is 98.8. That's 28th in the league. The difference is in our shooting % and a few less rebounds. Not turnovers, not more or less FGA, not "pace" or number of possessions....they're equal. In our losses we shoot more 3's at a worse %, fewer 2's (at a worse percentage), fewer FTs (at 7% worse) and 5 less rebounds. Tough to say we have the 2nd best offense in the league, when in our losses (generally against playoff-caliber teams...we've lost 14 to <.500 teams and 5 to >.500 teams) we have what would be the 28th-most efficient offense.
Is that a surprise the a teams offense is way better in wins versus losses? Either defense or offense is bound to be significantly worse in a teams losses, compared to their wins. I wouldn't say we have the best offense because when we win it is off the charts, just like I wouldn't say we have the 28th offense in the league because when we lose, it's horrible. In ALL games, we have the 3rd best offense in league, and to me, that's the best measure.
I see your point Tince, but I just disagree. Our deviation is horrific to me. When we play good teams (and I apologize in advance, I wrote a copy of this post a few days ago with a lot more detail and just am too tired right now) we have a very hard time winning even when we shoot the 3 well...that's where our poor defense shows. But in our losses to mediocre-to-bad teams, our shooting is horrific. You can tell the nights that we shot a ton of jumpers that didn't go in--there's an "L" in the stat column. When we win it's much more pronounced in that we shoot the lights out from deep and make more FTs, and our EFF goes up sharply. The 3 most efficient ways of scoring in the league are dunks/layups, FTs and open 3's. When we shoot open 3s well and hit 80% of our FTs, our EFF looks great even if we aren't getting many layups. When we have a hot night from 2ptLand, it ups our EFF and we generally win. When we lose, we aren't getting fastbreak baskets (which is a product of the slow-mo offense we play), we aren't making layups b/c Roy's really the only one who gets to the rim (Bayless doesn't play enough yet to count measurably) and on the "bad nights" he's not getting the buckets OR the FTs; our 3pt% is down 6% (from 'superhuman' to 'pedestrian'). When we aren't getting fastbreaks, layups, making 3's or making FTs, our "offensive scheme" is not robust enough, creative enough or able to be tailored enough to make a difference. We're stuck hoping off-balance 3's and shot-clock-beating jumpers go in. Not a winning formula.
We are rated high on that chart mainly because we are near the top (#5) in turnover ratio, #2 in rebound rate and #1 overall in offensive rebound rate. We are also dead last in pace factor. Our solid rebounding is really skewing the numbers making us statistically seem like a better offensive team than we are on the court.
Where are you coming up with our offensive eff. splits between wins a losses? What does a team like Boston look like when you split the two? You say we have a much harder time of winning when we play good teams, but it's not like the first half of our season was the "easy" half, yet we have a pretty darn good record. Obviously we lose more games to good teams than bad things, but again, why is this surprising? Most teams are either better offensively or defensively against bad teams than good ones. That's because the good teams have great offenses or defenses. Do you expect us to have the offensive schemes at the detailed level or the Spurs or the Celtics? In the NBA, these things takes years, not months. It's not like Doc Rivers comes up with these amazing plays, but he has the players who have seen the defensive schemes for 10+ and they're able to react accordingly without having to take that extra second to analyze what just happened.
Taking care of the ball, so you get more attempts, and second chances to score is part of having a good offense. Teams that turn the ball over more, might be running a more risky offense. Against bad teams, it works well, but often leads to turnovers and easy buckets for the other team. How to most offensive rebounds happen in the NBA? A player is attacking the basket and forces a post defender to help, leaving the weak-side open to get the offensive rebound. To me, that's a sign of a good offense, not a misleading factor to the effectiveness of our offense.
It took a lot of time punching stats into excel...I don't know what it looks like for "good teams". My (untested) hypothesis is "of course you're generally better in wins than losses, but not 23 EFF points better". How about saying it this way. "In our wins, we play offense 10% more efficiently than the best team in the NBA's average night. In our losses, we don't even compare to the Wizards and Grizzlies". Is that an "efficient offense"? Or is that a "schizophrenic, Left Eye Lopes offense" where one night she'll be amazingly hot and the next she'll burn your house down? You say we have a much harder time of winning when we play good teams, but it's not like the first half of our season was the "easy" half, yet we have a pretty darn good record. Obviously we lose more games to good teams than bad things, but again, why is this surprising? Most teams are either better offensively or defensively against bad teams than good ones. That's because the good teams have great offenses or defenses. [/quote]I think we're talking across each other here. Our defense is, across the board, poor. Against good teams it's so bad that even good offensive nights don't get us wins. The assertion that our offense is ok because only 2 teams have more efficient ones is what I'm contesting.
Which is what masks how good the team's offense is. There's nothing inherently negative about a low pace. Low pace reduces the number of possessions for both teams, so it comes down to who converts possessions into points the best and Portland is excellent at that. Low pace would be bad if it didn't suit the team's personnel, but I don't think that's the case. The players are perfectly well-suited to a methodical half-court offense.
The crazy thing is that pace (and similarly, "possessions", and a little more tangentially "FGA") are dead even in wins and losses. Pace factor 88.7 in wins, 88.8 in losses. Obviously outliers come on both ends, but I thought it was fascinating that, win or lose, we're still "methodical".
They have a guy named Brandon Roy who has the ball a lot and is very very good at getting to the key and commanding help. Jarred Bayless get to the rim and draws other teams big guys very well also. It is very common to see Aldridge and Oden get double teamed in the post, again, freeing up the weak-side rebound.
Brian, you made some good points in your earlier post, and I agree with you that we're not that far apart in our opinions of the Blazers. I'm sure you read the explanation that our pace is so low because our offensive rebound rate is high and we rarely fast break. I'd be curious to see what our record is when our pace is significantly higher than normal.
