Dame will show up because his team is now too strong for opposing teams to get away with the kind of defense the Pelicans employed last year. I would also suggest that Nurk is now a legitimate “star”, albeit an under-sung one because the NBA sports media are major market whores when it comes to coverage.
There is a difference in my opinion between Dame not having to do as much to win and a team that blitzes our pick and roll or traps Dame. Until they show the ability to make adjustments in the playoffs to counter that what you are saying is just wishful thinking. I do hope you are right though!
Effectively blitzing the Blazers' P&R and trapping Dame takes more than a decision by an opponent to do so. It also takes having the right personnel: quick, defensive-minded guards, and a big man capable of moving quickly to the perimeter to pick up Dame on the screen and then get back to cover the rim if Dame passes the ball off to Nurk or another big. The Pelicans last season had that combination of players. They won't be in the playoffs this year. There's only one AD and he's the only big who's been shown to be able to take on that kind of defensive assignment for a full series. The Jazz and Nuggets have somewhat mobile big men, but they are nowhere near as quick as AD and their guards aren't the defenders that Holliday and Rondo were for the Pelicans. Neither of those teams has been able to slow Dame much in the regular season. The Warriors, Thunder, Spurs, Kings, Clippers, and Lakers certainly don't have it. Houston theoretically has it in Paul and Capela, but Harden is such a defensive liability that if Paul dedicates that much energy to stopping Dame, CJ is going to score a ton. The other factor is that the Pelicans only held Dame to about 7 points under his season average in that series. CJ picked up a little of the slack, but the rest of the roster was pretty much ineffective. I don't see that being a problem this year. Hold Dame down and you've got a whole host of guys who can take up some of the slack.
Once again, I hope you are right. In a playoff series where teams can have more extensive game plans for stopping our offense, the Blazers have stubbornly been unwilling to adapt. Even your post sounds like we are just going to hope things are better this year because we won't be facing AD. I'm sorry but that line of thinking is exactly what gets this coaching staff in trouble.
Coaching should adapt to the strengths and weaknesses of a given opponent. Gentry did a great job of that last year. The Stotts and the Blazers simply didn't have an answer primarily, IMO, because of injuries and a very weak bench. The Blazers' offense has consistently been one of the top offenses in the league. It relies heavily on P&R sets to get Dame and, to a lesser degree, CJ, shots. You don't just drop your offensive game plan because another team might try to defend it with blitzes. They have to prove that they can do it consistently, and then you have to have the personnel to be able to do something different that will be effective. IMO, what Olshey and Stotts have done is to add that personnel. Trap Dame if you want, but you're going to pay for the privilege.
GSW has been pretty deep their entire championship tenure. Livingstone, Iggy, Clark, West, Bell, McGee or ZaZa, etc. Then you go back to the Spurs teams, Cavs, or Heat. You need your stars yes, but to go deep in the playoffs you need a bench. Clippers are a prime example of a great starting 5, with a ass bench not doing much in the playoffs because of it.
Nah, they've gotten killed still when teams trap Dame this year. They haven't done anything differently. To your point, the recent additions might help with that but I'm still waiting for you to name a team that has had success in the playoffs deferring to their role players? It just doesn't happen that way in the playoffs. And it was beyond stupid to keep running pick and roll in the series against the Pelicans knowing they were going to trap. Especially when they kept running it just across half court where the half court line can act as a 3rd defender.
But the stars of those teams never got taken out of the game and simply deferred to the role players. It's laughable to name star loaded teams as examples of that. C'mon HC, you're way better than that.
I think you are overstating your case. (Gee, when does that happen on a message board?) You're trying to sell that Dame and CJ were completely shut down in that series. They averaged a combined 44 points per game! The rest of the squad was abysmal. I don't see that happening again with the new roster, but the proof is in the pudding.
It's pretty common knowledge that to win in the playoffs you need a bench. That teams who rely on their starters alone don't do so well. Clippers, Portland(aldridge & Lillard eras), Bulls(Drose era), Thunder, Bucks, Memphis. Where teams that have a bench, or bench players who can be relied on to score do well. Rockets, GSW, Spurs(Duncan era), Lakers(Shaq & Kobe), etc. Hell you look @ prime LBJ/Wade/Bosh. Miller and old man Ray Allen played huge scoring roles for those teams in the playoffs on the way to the ring. History has shown that going into the playoffs where teams rely on their starters too much for scoring. Those teams fail, where teams with depth succeed. Now it's an entirely different argument on if I think Kanter/Layman/Curry/Turner/Collins/Hood provide that punch. I will say that Portland hasn't had players like Kanter/Hood in quite some time. They still don't move my needle. Disclaimer. I haven't read this thread nor have I read any posts except the two I responded of yours eric.
Overstating? The Pelicans whole game plan was to shut down Dame at all costs. They didn't really care about CJ going off so they let him get his and we still didn't win a game. Dame in that series: FG: 35.2% (Regular Season 43.9%) 3P: 30.0% (Regular Season 36.1%) PPG: 18.5 (Regular Season 26.9) APG: 4.75 (Regular Season 6.6) TO PG: 4.0 (Regular Season 2.8) AST to TO ratio: 1.19 (Regular Season 2.33) Points per Shot: 1.04 (Regular Season 1.39) That is being shut down, like completely. I don't even see how you can argue otherwise. Dame scored 68% of what he averaged int he regular season. His shooting numbers were terrible as he scored 74 points on 71 shots. He was forced into way more turnovers, assisted less. and had horrible efficiency.
Waiting for Dame to get some redemption. It wasn't JUST the gimmicky scheme they threw at him. Holiday shut him down even on the occasional 1 on 1 play.
Wow, I'm flabbergasted. So if the 2015-16 Blazers had a strong bench they could've taken down the Warriors or the Cavs? You say the bench matters and then list a bunch of teams that had less star power than the team they lost to which proves my point. Look at the Heat the two years LeBron struggled in the Finals where they lost to the Mavs and the Spurs. You need your stars to step up. Yes, having a bench and good role players for sure helps make it easier to advance or win a title but they can't carry a team in the playoffs when your best player is a shell of what he normally is.
For the record, I'm not trying to rip Dame here. I just don't think having a couple better players off the bench solves all our problems.
I am 100% certain that having better people to shoot the open 3 or go for an alley-oop, create by themselves or get the ball on the post via offensive rebounds or a pass is going to make trapping Dame a much more costly.
Not going to search through a ton of teams to test this premise (right now), but of the first two I looked at: last year's Warriors starters provided over 75% of their team's playoff scoring; the 2009 Blazers' starters provided less than 71% of that team's playoff scoring. I have no idea what a "good" ratio of starter/bench scoring would be to tend toward playoff success, but I'm not sure that the common knowledge is completely reliable.
Lillard 2017-18 season average: 27 ppg McCollum 2017-18 season average: 21 ppg Total: 48 ppg Pelican Series: Lillard: 19 ppg McCollum: 25 ppg Total: 44 ppg The backcourt production was held 4 point per game under the season average. Yes, Dame in particular pushed things and took too many bad shots trying to do too much, but that was because the rest of the team was CRAP! Were there other X's and O's that Stotts could have tried? Sure, but it wouldn't have covered for the very basic fact that with Moe and ET banged up, the Blazers just flat didn't have enough talent to hang with the Pelicans. Holiday was playing out of his mind. AD was AD. Rondo was far more important to that team than was recognized and he played great. You couldn't say that of a single Blazer.
Sure, as I've stated numerous times that having better role players and a better bench is very helpful. To what extent though? Is it the difference between not getting swept in the 1st round and winning a game or two? Or is the difference between a 1st round exit and making the WCF? My point is that I don't think it really matters if Dame isn't also closer to his regular season output. Both CJ and Aminu shot pretty well in that series last year and that didn't matter.
But it's not just the bench. Nurkic has improved so much this season. His PER is up from 19.2 last year to 23.3 this year. Harkless was injured last year in the playoffs and ET was banged up. Aminu is up in PER from 12 to 13.2.
Pelicans strategy: Take out Dame, make anyone else on the Blazers beat us INCLUDING CJ. @hoopsjock 's point: That strategy was/is super effective as CJ played well and it didn't matter one bit. I don't think teams can win deep into the playoffs if their best player is a shell of what he is in the regular season. @e_blazer's point: When you combine Dame and CJ they did fine! If the Blazers would've been more competitive in that series then I could maybe see your point. You can't include CJ's stats with Dame's when the other team didn't care that CJ was playing hero ball. The Pelicans strategy worked to perfection! Dame doesn't do well when blitzed/doubled out of the pick and roll, whether it's AD or a mediocre defender. AD's skills of course are much tougher to adjust to but the Blazers have literally done nothing different when teams double Dame this year. It doesn't matter what the role players do if Dame is torn down to that level of play again.
