http://espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/teamstats/_/sort/defensiveEff/order/false I don't know if this has been updated. It shows Miami 25th and us 28th in defense. It also shows we are 3rd, Miami 1st and Clippers 2nd.
CAN be? Yes. WILL be? No. LIKELY to be? No. If the Spurs were to be decimated by injuries I think the highest we could hope for would be 4th seed (behind HOU/OKC/LAC), and we could bottom out as low as 9/10. The West really is wide open, but that plays both ways - we could end up with a decent seed OR end up on the outside looking in. But this team does feel like it could have one of those mid-teens winning streaks in it.
I think you are unaware of the rules of seeding blue9 <-- See what I did there?!?! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_playoffs That means even if a team like OKC wins the division and we have the 3rd best record, we have an opportunity to get the 3rd seed if the pacific division has a lower record.
Might be because Spurs/Suns/Nugs all won games on Monday. Is the rating dynamic, or just considers the record at the time our game vs Team X was played?
Yes , we can get 3 seed. Remember- we have CJ joining the teAm in about 6 weeks. His scoring will improve our team even more.
Whos minutes is he taking? It's not like it's him or Nolan Smith anymore. It's him or Williams, Wright, Lillard, Matthews
I would hope that Lillard would require less minutes, then take a little from Matthews and Mo. Maybe around 10 a game?
Williams is already down 5 minutes per game from his NBA career average Lillard shouldn't get any less than 35 AT MINIMUM. I don't see where the minutes will come from, while also keeping guys involved in the game. Right now we have a pretty good 9 man rotation with literally 5 of those 9 able to play the 2 guard spot
Minimize the Mo-Dame, and the Mo-Wes time in the first half, and you can work in 15-20mpg for CJ if needed. All depends on how good he is.
Look at the Clippers for instance: CP: 36mpg Redick: 30mpg Crawful: 27mpg Collison: 14mpg We can do exactly what they're doing. We even had some instances with Nic playing SG. No need for that with CJ back.
Currently, our rotation of guards are as follows: Lillard 37.7, Mo Williams 25.1, Matthews 33.7 Adding CJ (If he can contribute mind you) can shave 2 minutes from Lillard, 5 from Williams, and 3 from Matthews = 10 mpg End result: Lillard 35.7, Mo 20.1, Matthews 30.7 and CJ 10
So Williams came here to play 10 less minutes per game than his career average? CJ gets 9.5 mpg? Batum and Wright strictly play the 3? right now those two are averaging just over 48 per game, so their minutes would need to be taken away from as well
There really isn’t minutes for CJ at the moment. However I’d say its highly unlikely all 8 guys in our rotation stay healthy for all of the upcoming games as well as unlikely we want to play our starters as many minutes as their currently playing for all 82 games. So when we have someone miss time it’ll open up minutes for him. With our positional versatility CJ can really get minutes from any player on the team as we can slide Matthews to SF or play a smaller lineup with Aldridge as the backup center. CJ being injured probably doesn’t hurt us now but its means Will Barton is on deck so hopefully we don’t need him to bat.
This is the downside of depth, good players on the bench would like to get minutes. There isn’t a solution that makes everyone happy so the coach will have to get Mo or CJ to buy in. Hopefully we don’t have major injuries but odds are somebody in our rotation will miss significant time. Has there ever been one Blazers season where the top 8 players all played over 75 games?
I am saying there is nothing to discuss. Mo is an established good NBA player and CJ is a rookie. Nothing to get on board with
