. . . in the last 3 minutes of a game. In other words, when it really counts, the Blazers shut you down better than almost anyone. http://espn.go.com/nba/dailydime/_/page/dime-131226/daily-dime
Interesting stat, thanks for sharing. Would be nice to see them bump this up by a few minutes. I'm way too young and devastatingly attractive to go gray (and then lose) all of my hair.
Our Offense is ridiculous in the last 3m as well, something like 137.8 or something like that(can't remember what article I read that in). Having such a lockdown D in the last 3 minutes is what has really given me hope that we can slowly improve our D heading towards the end of the year. I dont' have any illusion that we will be a top 10 D team but a top 15 close to top 10 doesnt' seem out of reach.
We almost always switch Batum onto the PG during this time. I wonder when we get to the playoffs how Stotts will use Batum. If its a team like the Clippers or Spurs we might want to play him on CP3 or Parker closer to 20mins a game.
The Blazers defense is awful. Not even the biggest homers would argue that, I don't care what the stats say.
I think a big part of the defensive success in the final minutes is the switch of Batum onto the PG. But I also don't think it's a maneuver that's nearly so effective to use for an entire game. It's one of those changeups that breaks the opposing team's offensive rhythm--they are used to all game not worrying about defense from the PG position. They take it for granted. They know the changeup is coming with Batum guarding the PG, but they've been playing 40-42 minutes one way, staying competitive against a pretty high octane offense, and it's easy to lose track of what that change means, especially when every possession is so pivotal. Suddenly there's this ridiculous amount of length covering the middle of the back court, and it just kind of throws a monkey wrench into everything. And then at the other end of the court you have Lillard going Sub Zero on you, so it's very tempting for the opposing team's PG to take it on himself to go right back and pay Lillard back, which is exactly what we want them to do. The ideal scenario is for the PG to decide to go one-on-one with Batum, because Nic will force bad shots, deflections, and drives pointed to where our help defense is. If we decided to put Nic on the PG all night, they have all night to get used to the idea and develop a rhythm going against it. They can exploit Lillard guarding a 2 or 3, for example. It's probably just not as effective for us.
