Miller and Hawes were getting open shots both recent games we played... like all day long. We seem to have terrible defense, with a defensive minded coach. But at least our offense is money.
Our offense sucks too. It's inflated because of hot shooting. Our defense sucks because no one on the Blazers coaching staff seems to know how to teach it. It's pretty simple really. Watch Boston play defense, or the L*kers. Both of those teams make it hard for the opponent to get the shots they want. For example, teams WANT Aldridge to take jumpers, so he gets a lot of them. Portland doesn't seem to know what to do. The Chicago game was the exception. They shut down Rose and forced other people to beat them. A team like Sacramento is pretty easy to guard if you know what the hell you're doing. Portland can play a triangle and two defense and take them out of everything they were doing. Just play Batum and Aldridge out on the corner shooters and then have the PG force the ball to one side and trap with either Batum or Aldridge while the SG slides out to take the 3 point shooter. It's simple basketball that isn't being taught.
Yes that worries me because so many 7 foot centers can bomb away from 23 ft. We shut down Rose the other night but he goes off for 25 against the Jazz. Utah is a terrible defensive team with a defensive minded coach. Life in the NBA
Regressed? Maybe Blake. The big regression came from replacing Jack's 28MPG with Sergio and Rudy - and both are not as good as he was. The problem is not with coaching - it is getting Rudy the minutes while he adjusts to the NBA game and taking your lumps with it - and it is giving Sergio more minutes than he deserves because he whined to the press.
Blazers have held their last four opponents to under 100 pts. Sac has scored over 100 pts in 2 of their last 4 games . . . the two they didn't score 100 pts was against Ptd (also Chicago has failed to score 100 pts in only 1 of their last four games . . . against Ptd.)
This is again where stats are misleading. Portland isn't causing the misses by making the opponent shoot where they aren't comfortable. Teams are just missing shots they normally make.
I wish it was. But we were the #14 team in defensive efficiency last year. We are down to #25 now - and it's not because our center defeinsive play regressed (it has actually gone up), it is not because our SF defensive efficency regressed (it has not, it has gone up - Batum is better than anyone we had last year and Travis is better this year) - it is because our PG play and backup SG play are just god-awful. Think who was our backup SG last year and played a lot of PG defense when playing next to Roy. Think who we have now. Draw your own conclusions.
I would like to make one point here, about a certain guy who is not playing right now. A lot of last year, when Portland played a team with a star player, it was actually Martell Webster who carried the bulk of the defensive assignement against them. He has not played a lick this year of course due to injury. The guy getting that assignment because of the injury, is Outlaw. Now if you consider that Webster was used to guard SG/SF types that were high end scorers, and that he has consistently been the fastest guy on the team (improvement in team speed), I believe the defense should improve some when he is back. In my book, it is fairly obvious we do indeed miss Webster. I also believe when he comes back that the Blazer offensive spacing is going to finally find its way. Will he solve everything? No. But he is a piece. More important than a lot of folks think.
I love the potential of Batum and what he brings right now. But I agree with you. Right now with Greg playing in his first 10 games, we need someone who can spread the floor better. Martel can do that as well as play some d. Starting two rookies is making us inconsistent at the moment. Nothing we can do about it for now.
Webster got killed last year against the taller athletic SF - but did very well against the smaller and faster ones or some SG he had to guard. Batum is an upgrade against the T-Macs of the world and a downgrade against the smaller, quicker guys. Travis has played better D this year than last year (but he was mostly guarding PF last year). Overall - I would say that our SF defense is not better or worse than last year. It's our perimeter defense. I agree that Webster's return will help us - we can move Outlaw back to PF defense and he will be better there than he was last year - while Webster and Batum can be matched on defensive assignment based on matchup. It is still our perimeter defense against the PG that kills us night in, night out.
You mean the PG penetration? Because i do not recall many games where the PG has killed us from the perimeter. (except Nash) It has been who they dished off to after penetrating. Like last night. (Hawes and Miller) Salmon just got isolated on our centers and fired away. But most of Beno's damage was done at the basket. Certainly Rose did not hurt us.
Our PG need to get in front of whoever they guard, bump him and make it harder for him to penetrate - so they can not shoot or have the bigs collapse on them to free someone on the perimeter. People were whining about Jack bumping last year and getting "stupid" fouls - but these fouls often disrupted the opposing team's offensive flow and allows us to re-adjust on the defense when the ball was taken from the side - and the opposing team had less time to go through this exercise again and had to rush shots. If you can't stop the opposing team's PG - at least funnel them into the right place for a double-team or a block by the bigs - but our PGs are not even doing that. It is just disgusting perimeter defense - the opposing PGs go to lunch on us by either draining their shots, putting out bigs in foul trouble or finding free shooters because we have to collapse on them.
Individually everybody's adequate. It's team defense that we're lacking in. Players are just getting open and nobody is covering. I think the player we miss most is not Webster, it's James Jones, because he would always talk on D and actually had some effect. We need someone who'll do that - like Garnett did and does for Boston. I think Przybilla knows what to do in general but isn't a talker. I'm not sure how much of a clue the rest of 'em have. (If I had to pick a worst offender, I think it would be Greg Oden.)
It's obvious that Blake and Sergio are not doing a good job of staying in front of the ball-handler, which puts more pressure on our bigs on the defensive end. In Blake's case I wonder if the preseason injury is affecting defensive capabilities. In previous years, the guy seemed to be a pretty good on ball defender. So far this year he just seems a step behind in staying front of his man. Our record is good considering the tough schedule and poor defense, but eventually I'm afraid this lack of defensive intensity will bring about a Phoenix Suns (pre Shaq) or Dallas Mavericks type of mindset, whereby defense isn't even played at all. Even though we have good defenders such as Oden, Joel, Batum, and Roy the "worry about offense only" syndrome is very contagious. Offense can get you by in the regular season, but defense wins championships.
I agree with you on the perimeter point guard defense. What is the worst thing about it, is that it is exposing our big guys for fouls. Fouls that can be avoided. Maybe that is why when Bayless gets some minutes, he might fit in. He is a helluva defender.
It's probably an oversimplification, but 10 road games and 5 home games, where we've had a pretty heavy dose of good teams to contend with are probably skewing the numbers somewhat. Other than that, a lot of our guys just don't have that defensive mentality; most are very finesse oriented and still really young, and they don't really have a tough minded, veteran leader to show them how it's done through example -- Joel is close, but doesn't really strike me as a leader type. Most people don't seem to want to hear it, but this team needs some more veteran players added to the mix who are known for their toughness as much as their talent (think Ron Artest, Gerald Wallace, etc.).
