Say what you want about Stotts, but the personnel on this roster has flaws that no amount of scheming will magically turn it into a contender.
Matchup dependent with just an average level IQ and enough guys you can ignore that it makes it really hard on our better offensive players to perform.
Putting the ball in those guys hands isn't going to help either. Spacing, cutting and passing lanes are still compromised which affect Dame and CJ's ability to work off the ball.
Reading the thread after the game, I want to discuss this with everyone who mentioned that this team doesn't have the talent to fix this issue...
Here is just what I could think of off the top of my head:
1)
Don't set a screen for Dame. If they are blitzing him off the screens to the point it is shutting down the whole offense I'd rather take my chances with Dame being able to navigate the offense without a pick, especially if he has an average defender like Jamal Murray guarding him. If you noticed during the game the Nuggets often had Millsap guarding the guy they thought was going to set the pick for Dame. For example Millsap was guarding Nurkic and Jokic was on Aminu. If I can see that at home there is no excuse for the coaches not recognizing this. Millsap was great at double teaming Dame in this game.
2)
Run pick and roll with someone else as the screener. If guys like Anthony Davis and Paul Millsap are blowing up our offense here's a radical suggestion: don't fucking send the guy that player is guarding to be the one who is setting the screen. For example, when Millsap was guarding Leonard then he should've been the one camped out in the corner at the 3 point line. Instead what do we do? We keep sending the same player to set the screen so that they can double. Unless the other team has multiple long athletic defensive freaks, if we take the disruptive defender out of the play it changes everything. If he helps off of his man too much then you make him pay with a wide open 3 or a baseline cut for a dunk/layup.
3)
Play Dame off the ball. What the fuck happened to this concept from the preseason? If Dame doesn't have the ball and you set a screen for him there is no way the defense can double him because if they do it leaves the screener wide open on a roll to the basket. If they switch then you have a mismatch and simply pass Dame the ball and clear out or post up the big on the smaller defender. If one screen doesn't work run him off of multiple screens.
4)
Play inside out instead of outside in. You know what would work getting Millsap away from the screens? Make Denver pay for putting him on Nurk. They posted up Nurk on Millsap one of the first plays of the game and he easily scored. I don't remember them going back to him with the mismatch again. Once the entry pass is made some off the ball movement is all that would be needed. Guys like Harkless and Aminu could down the middle or set off the ball picks for Dame and CJ and Nurk could kick it out for open 3's. At some point if Nurk is effective on the block the other team will have to start doubling too.
5)
Run the offense through the high post. Nurk had something like 8 assists in the Washington game mostly through good passes from the high post and since then they've barely gone to that play. Denver was overplaying like crazy tonight. The back door cuts would've been there all night and it would have forced them to not play so aggressively.
6)
Stop doing hand off passes to Dame and CJ. This was another thing that was really fucking frustrating tonight. Portland's predictable offense when a big has the ball (especially on the side), they almost always wait for Dame or CJ to come so they can just hand the ball off to them and then try to get in his defenders way so he gets open. What Denver would do is just have whatever big was guarding the guy with the ball play over the top so when the ball was handed off there was a defender right in his face blocking his path. You could see the trap coming about 3 seconds before it actually happened. I don't get why we continue to run the offense that way when it is getting shut down.
These are all super basic ideas, most of which have nothing to do with the talent level of the team. Even if it was true that Dame had no help why continue to run the same concepts offensively that don't work in the playoffs?
