Kanter has clearly taken criticism of his defense personally. You can't argue he isn't hustling out there.
I don’t necessarily think you’re wrong. I just think Donovan is a complete buffoon who doesn’t know how to take advantage of Kanter’s defensive deficiencies. Unfortunately I think at some point we will be confronted by a coach who is going to make Kanter unplayable. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen until at least the WCF though.
No, his argument was that specifically playing the Thunder was the worst matchup for us because both Donovan and Adams know everything about Kanter and will exploit things that other teams wouldn't. He was definitely wrong about that.
Adams makes $25M a year and I’m not sure how much more valuable he is to a team than Kanter, nevermind Nurkic. Donovan has underutilized Adams offensively, but Portland is going right after him in the pick and roll. If they keep doing it, OKC will be forced to play Noel instead, who Kanter can eat against in the post and the boards. Noel is also a good matchup for Collins since Noel doesn’t have Adams’ size.
Me too. Going into the series I was convinced Adams was the superior all-around player and that Kanter would have to go 20/10 every game just to off-set his poor defense. Didn't work out that way, did it!
I thought Kanter's defense was bad last night in the first quarter. I didn't notice anything glaringly bad after that. Overall I'm happy with Kanter's playoff performance. We sure as hell need him since Nurk is out. Imagine if we had both of them healthy. Le Sigh
Haha. The guy sounded like Eeyore. His main thesis is that OKC is shooting too early in the shot clock, then he whines that the refs should be calling defensive three seconds on Kanter. But in all but 'maybe' the first clip where he says Kanter should be called for three seconds, Kanter isn't even in the key for three seconds before the shot goes up. Also in his critique of shots early in the clock, and especially complaining about Westbrick, most of those are good shots. Dame and CJ routinely take, and make, tougher shots than those, regardless of the clock. So does Curry, and sometimes Aminu. My biggest take-away from those clips is that Kanter is doing a fantastic job boxing out Adams, and whoever, on defensive rebounds.
Hell yeah I'm going to pigpile, you deserve it man! This is what you get for being scared of the big bad OKC and for thinking that the Blazers weren't better off on the opposite bracket than GS and Houston!
As a fan, I have empathy for him and other OKC fans. At the end of the day fans just want there teams to win and as a Blazer fan I know well what it feels like when the teams I cheer for lose. At least he’s been classy about it.
Lol cmon man, this video is baddd. *complains about Ferguson shooting a wide open 3 with 15 on shot clock* *applauds Grant for shooting a wide open 3 with 15 on the shot clock* This dude made me feel better about my videos haha.
I think Kantor has done a very good job for us as a back up center. He does what he does offensively and has picked it up defensively while the entire team has rallied behind him and picked it up defensively. Nurk going down when he did was a huge blow to us but it might have been what we needed to wake up and shift gears into the playoffs.
Considering I've gotten off multiple shots against 7-footers from the JC National Champion... Oh wait, they get factual logic confused with cockiness. Damn!
"Lower the volume of early shot clock 3s. More patient basketball with drives into the paint will create opportunities for Portland to Foul." Russ will get right on that, lol.
I have said this before but defensively Adams is average at best. I never noticed until last year when the Blazers were playing the Thunder in a national game and one of the announcers (I want to say Hubie Brown) pointed out how slow reacting Adams was on several plays. I then started looking for it and sure enough he was right.