What do you think about Terry Stotts?

Does he? or does Lillard make the team fun to watch win or lose?

I like Terry and think he is doing a pretty good job with a limited roster. But the defensive intensity is non existent with this team. He definitely deserves another year though, and no doubt better than KC would have been. But the honeymoon period is almost over. Next year is key for him. I am rooting for him though.

 

For me; I'm just happy we are seeing progress. I think our defense needs a shit ton more work. They have a real tough time with help defense, and this is all the way around.

I never understood why it's hard to put pressure on the ball handler; then get back to your man. I could understand if we were old; but we have a very young team.

The moment we get at least in the top ten in the major defensive categories is when I'm 100% sold!

 

Fair question. Batum and Matthews have that same free-flowing vibe as Lillard this year. They're obviously nowhere near as good, but the quality is there. So, I think a lot of the credit goes to Stotts. Of course, some of it could be Lillard rubbing off on teammates, so we'll never really be able to answer that question.

 

It's hard for a fan to evaluate a coach, because we really don't know how he's affecting the team. I like it that he seems to quicker to make changes that McMillen. But I haven't seen much improvement in the team. The Blazers still are near the bottom in fast break points, and still one of the most perimeter oriented offenses in the league. I think it's our players.

I would have preferred Rick Adleman.

 

It might help if you take your black shades off. Our offense is greatly improved, we take so many threes because we actually have ball movement this year. That and The Great Dame.

Defense is obviously our weak point but lots of that is due to our lack of depth and inside presence. On offense, if Stotts can get LMA in the post where he belongs and foster the duo with Lillard on PnR's he'll take this team to the next level.

 

We have the 8th worst 3pt% but have the 5th most attempts. Not a good combination. And once again, we rank near the bottom of the league in fast break points (4th worst) and points in the paint (3rd worst). Now you may consider that to be a "great improvement" but the only improvement I see is that we have Lillard instead of Felton and Crawford. We rank 6th worst just in 2pt%. Do you see a pattern here? So you can have all the ball movement you want, but it doesn't matter if you're not efficient.

So this "great improvement" you proclaim is going from shitty to bad, if anything.

And you're right, our defense is terrible too. We're 2nd worst in the league at giving up points in the paint.

 

Yes but there has been improvement. If we played like this all season; we'd be a sixth or 7th seed

 

Actually, Jon, we started the year 20-15. It's the way we've been playing recently that has been bad. Time to rev up again though and finish on fire.

 

Well that start was when batum, aldridge and Matthews were healthy. Let's get them 100% and we got something here "Eric"

 

Agree we need to push the tempo big time, but "once again" that comes back to our lack of depth. Once we get deep at every position, a la the Spurs, then we can push the pace and get easy buckets. We might not have as many fast break points as last year but the eye test says we are much better at it this year, we were UGLY last year.

 

Claver, Leonard and Maynor have been playing great off the bench...well, relative to what we've been seeing.

I think our number one problem is interior defense. Meyers Leonard and Hickson are terrible interior defenders.

 

That seems to be what people have been saying about the Blazers for years now.

 

The problem with pushing the pace is that to do it on a consistent basis and to do it right, you need better ball handlers and passers other than just the point guard. When Damian and Maynor are in together it will work. But as much as I like Wes he is not good at it. And he is our other guard. I think Nic is adequate but he even tries to make
difficult quick passes. (But at least he has the tools to get better at it)