Gotta be honest...... I would rather Hood take those shots for Harkless. Or Kanter for Aminu.... or CJ.... or Dame..... or Seth..... I have pretty much zero faith in those guys being able to score consistently. They have a great game every 3 or 4 games, but we have no idea when that will be.
I agree with you, they are probably 6th and 7th options. I just have a hard time with 2/5 of our starting lineup combining for 4 points, 8 rebounds, and 4 assists in 50 combined min. If we can’t get more than that out of the Starting Forwards we are pretty fucked imo.
Enes did a heroic job in Game 1, but played 33 min. Let's complement his points and efficiency with 20+ min and 3+ swish3s from Meyers, who bothered the shots of Jokic, screened excellently, set up Rod's swish3 with the behind the back pass, and provided strong defensive hustle. We should count on Meyers and Seth to each score 9 points via swish3s and win Game 2. With fewer turnovers, better defensive intensity, more consistent fouls called by the refs, and some points (30+) from the bench, we can be 1-1 with DEN tomorrow night! We are on the way to the Championship!
Ya our game was pretty much normal from the refs. No really egregious bad calls and if there were, it happened on both ends. We straight up lost that game.
I thought they were letting Jokic get away with a ton on both ends, but really the biggest part I thought they played was the Blazers let them get into their heads, they started playing 5 on 8 when they didn't need to. You could tell they were really frustrated by the officials. Which I get to a point the only way to stop Jokic and Milsap is to match their physicality and if you feel like the officials aren't letting you then it's frustrating but it took Aminu and Moe out of the game mentally. They lost that game because they didn't play a lick of interior defense and the #1 rule in NBA defense is to dictate what shots the other teams get they didn't do that, the Nuggets got basically every one of their shots in their comfort zone.
I think Aminu/Moe weren't as engaged because they got no shots on offense. Dame shot 13 FTs. Thought the refs were fine.
Here is where we need to look at the big picture. Yes, Jokic was abusing our bigs and getting calls. Dame was abusing their guards and getting calls as well. Think about how many FTA he had in the 4th.
They passed up a ton of shots and made some stupid decisions. I thought the refs were pretty much whatever, but you could tell in the 4th quarter Moe and Aminu were really frustrated and complaining to the refs all the time it got in their heads. I didn't say that the refs favored Denver just that Jokic was allowed to be more physical on both ends than what the Blazers were allowed to match. Jokic and Dame both got a lot of star calls. The difference is that I think it's more frustrating for a defense when one player is really physical and getting all the calls and one player is a guard who isn't really physically beating you up.
Those 3 FTs Dame got when he double clutched and rose up was ridiculous. There was hardly any contact.
I didn't "blame" the officials or say they favored Denver though. Also big difference to me between a lot of physicality in the paint being called one way and a guard getting a lot of calls because defenders are being physical with him. I didn't have a huge problem with the officiating, I did have a huge problem with the Blazers defense or lack thereof.
I'll even say I think when Nurkic is healthy he frustrates teams in a similar way that Jokic does. Initiates a ton of contact, is physically kind of beating you up and get's calls. It's not really bad calls, but I understand how frustrating it can be. Blazers can't let it get in their heads as they did.
It's Stotts fault for putting guys that are technically wings on guys that are true power forwards and centers.
not sure why you guys are so stuck in FTA's and what Dame vs Jokic got, I didn't claim it was one way or that the Blazers lost because of officiating.
I'm not sure what options he really has, Do you want to see 30 minutes from ML to guard Jokic? He's probably the only guy left physically strong enough to deal with him 1v1. Milsap is an issue too.
