The Raptors should be an example to us of how to build a better team

Maybe ML, Zach or Jake can add it to their book of work for the summer?

 

Maybe Zach or Jake, I think that ship has sailed for ML, but to be fair he does seem to work hard so who knows.

 

30 points against the Warriors !!!
Maybe the coach just ... clueless?

 

You guys are discussing the pawns. Swap trade cut but no difference. We must have a owner that wants to win
So that you can get a basketball coach that knows how to win. We have neither and haven't had for nearly 30 years.
But you see, the butts are in the seats. No change needed.

 

Meyers did play point center the last couple minutes against the kings!

 

I have lost faith in Stotts. I don't believe he can compete with the better coached teams.

 

These Stotts sucks threads always leave me scratching my head. The Blazers win 53 games, about 8-10 more than most “experts” predicted; they make the WCF, when almost everyone said they wouldn’t get out of the first round; they give the Warriors a fight even though Dame, Kanter, and Hood are banged up; and still it’s Stotts to blame that they don’t win the title?

 

I literally couldn't care less about regular season record. It means absolutely zilch if you can't convert in the playoffs.

Yes. We beat a horrible Thunder team.

Yes, we barely squeaked by a Denver team that was in its first ever playoffs with that roster.

Stotts still showed a complete ineptitude to beat a trap. This has been going on for FOUR YEARS.

 

Ok so if they were a 40 win team and missed the playoffs you wouldn't care? Have to win in the regular season to turn it into playoff success.

OKC is a flawed team, but not a horrible team.
Denvers a legitimately good team that the Blazers beat, they are young but so what?

Blazers choked so bad in that GS series, Blame Stotts if you want but that was a complete team meltdown from top to bottom. Stotts has issues but the players had plenty of opportunities to make open shots, or to just play smart basketball.

You can be mad at Stotts and Im fine with that, but I havent for a second believed that series was all on him. The 2nd half performances top to bottom looked like Phoenix suns basketball...

 

I would buy it, if it was the first time we lost to GS.
This is the 3rd or 4th time they trash us. And that's my point. We aren't learning anything.
I didn't say Stotts is trash. I said he is incapable of beating good coached teams.
Again, I'm not necessarily asking him to win the series ... Damned, make it competitive. Win some games. Scare the hell out of them. Win a game on the road or at least win all your home games ...

 

But it's not just this postseason. It has been four years man. FOUR YEARS.

LAC
Golden State
New Orleans
Denver

Those four teams have been extremely successful of shutting down or drastically slowing down Dame. This has been going on for four years. We haven't adjusted.

 

Did I say Stotts sucks? I said the man is incapable of learning anything against the Warriors.
Again, Doc Rivers and Mike D'Antoni won 2 games ... with lesser records than the Blazers.

 

Maybe they arent good enough to do that though. Their forwards legitimately should not be a starting tandem in the NBA. Why Zach wasnt playing more, why Aminu / Harkless keep getting minutes I’ll never know. But even with Zach and Hood they still very much have roster problems that arent entirely on Stotts.

They shouldve won 2-3 games in that series and only part of it was coaching, those guys melted. Not Stotts fault when CJ, Dame, Curry, Hood, and really all of em are missing wide open shots. When all of them are committing some of the dumbest turnovers in the history of basketball. Or when guys dont even do the basic thing of pick up the ball in transition. I really doubt Stotts was in the huddle saying please Jog back and watch Draymond run a lay up drill.

 

Hey I get it, but its gonna be really hard to convince me that this latest one wasn't just as much on the players as Stotts. Lazy transition defense, missing open shots, stupid turn overs.
GS owns them, Stotts included. It was a collapse 3 straight games, and none of them are blameless to me.

 

Stotts is a fantastic coach for the regular season. He gives his teams a lot of freedom and smooths out the highs/lows.

HOWEVER, when things get tight in the playoffs - there is a general lack of discipline that the team has. The standard of excellence gets glossed over during the year. A lot of the 'little things' don't get corrected (working on screens so Collins doesn't get called for so offensive fouls, making the right read and pass - instead of taking the contested shot, practice mixing up defensive schemes during a game, not jumping with the ball without knowing where to pass, how to handle the hard trap). In the playoffs, these little things get magnified. Many times its the difference between wins and losses.

 

Dude, you forgot to tag @H.C. when talking about Meyers being the Point Center of the Future!

 

The “choking” began after Dame was injured in Game 2. The Blazers built big leads in the last 3 games, but couldn’t hold onto them because they got tight and couldn’t hit their shots. A large part of that may be attributable to their best player not being able to steady the ship due to his injured ribs. A bigger part is that the Warriors have been there before and you won’t find players more battle hardened than Curry, Green and Thompson.

 

Being able to beat the traps requires having forwards who can hit a shot to penalize the opponents for doubling so hard. Chief and Harkless were totally ineffective in the GSW series. I don’t see that as being on Stotts.

 

We will be very good next season. I have a great confidence in the team.