I know it might not be fair to say but Whiteside leaves a lot to be desired. He gets crazy stats, but when you actually focus on him you can spot mistakes on almost every defensive set. Sometimes he was like "Now i should guard Jokic? But if I go there how do i get the rebound? I ll just stay in the free throw line". And if there was no chance to block sometimes he doesn't even lift his hand. You could also see that he was a step late after catching the ball in the pick and roll, he was late to decide what to do with it. Maybe I got too much used to Nurkic's playmaking and defensive awareness, but it looked bad to me. And then you see 16 points, 19 rebounds and you say oh wtf he was a god, but Nurkic could get 14 points and 10 rebounds and his positive impact would be mugh higher.
Of course I'm not blaming the loss to Whiteside, this was not on him. Just a comparison with Nurkic and how the team is so much different and everybody needs time to get the chemistry.
I have voiced my concers for Simons and the lack of a playmaker in the 2nd unit and I fear this will haunt us all season long as the kid lacks experience and it shows. I was never a Hezonja believer as well. On the bright side Skal was amazing and Zach was solid although his outside shot needs a lot of work, that airball was shocking.
But after all we lost to a GREAT team that finished 2nd last season in the West and they brought back their entire team while we changed half of it,including 3 starters. The loss was to be expected and it doesn't mean we are that bad, I just hope we can get it together soon enough and not to lose much ground.
Man, I feel like I was watching a different game. Skal had a couple of nice defensive plays but overall didn't have a lot of impact beyond what you saw in the stats. He and Tolliver were just occupying space.
Whiteside (and Collins, to be fair) clearly had an impact on what Denver was doing, particularly in the first half. The interior was pretty much closed off when he was out there.
Portland couldn't figure out how to challenge three pointers, and that's why they lost. If Nurk were playing last night he doesn't do any better of a job guarding the three point line. We don't ask out centers to switch to the three point line (except for opposing centers at times). The Jokic threes were legit gripes, I think, but hey, he hit them at 30% last year so I didn't really have a problem with Whiteside's strategy of letting him fly.
My key points:
1. Stotts needs to use his 1 coaching challenge every single game in the first quarter on whatever ticky tack bullshit gets called on Zach. We should call it the Collins Challenge from now on. Use it to fucking embarrass refs. If you blow a questionable call on Zach YOU WILL GET CALLED ON IT. The strategy of holding onto it until the 4th quarter is a waste of time. By then the foul damage is done. Zach deserves a better rep in the league than he has, and the coach has an actual tool in his hands he can use to make that happen. (I'm going to start a new thread with this point just because I feel it so strongly.)
2. It's kind of annoying that we got Hood to sign with us by promising a starter's job. Because clearly Bazemore is a better fit for defending the perimeter and hustling, while Hood makes more sense scoring off the bench.
3. Portland is going to blindside a lot of teams this year with them thinking they can stroll to the rim like they do against most teams. Word is going to get around that if you hit a lot of threes, you'll win. If you don't, you won't. Because it's fucking hard to score with all those arms in the middle.
4. Neither Ant nor CJ were second banana tonight. Portland needs a second banana guard. Both guys seem to be trying new things (Ant = playing, CJ = take more threes) and I'm hoping they get used to it.
5. We picked a bad time to lose a home opener. There are a lot of road meals ahead. Kind of nervous.
