Game Thread GAME# 26: BLAZERS @ NUGGETS - DECEMBER 12, 2019 - THURSDAY, 7:30 PM, TNT

[BBert]

Barkley keeps saying break up the Blazers. He's right, but not in the way he thinks. It won't break my heart if Olshey and Stotts are gone this summer. Change is inevitable. Sometimes it's neccessary. It's time.

 

[Labinot41]

You're seriously complaining about the guys shooting a combined 60% shooting too much? Lmao.

No man, i'm complaining that our two stars are playing like shit, we get dominanted all the time by good teams, why can't our stars not dominate good teams ??

 

[DDolla]

Hassan: Where’s my shooters?

 

[Labinot41]

Dame talking about being lock in before the Knicks game then lay another egg in this game lol

Typical Dame, he talks a lot on social Media, but i haven't seen him prove his talk on the court

 

[BigGameDamian]

No man, i'm complaining that our two stars are playing like shit, we get dominanted all the time by good teams, why can't our stars not dominate good teams ??

Neil says there best friends on & off court. That's why we can't trade them.

 

[BlazerRx]

Obviously our bench is lacking (to say the least) with the injuries that we have, but 9 points for the game!? And all by 1 guy.....

 

[TBpup]

Dame didn't look very engaged and after his statement the other day about the team needing to basically be perfect to win games, perhaps he is coming to the reality of what this team really is.

Trent - for someone who is supposed to be a shooter, he can't his sh!t.

 

[BBert]

Who the fuck dressed chris paul?

His State Farm buddy?

 

[PCmor7]

Barkley keeps saying break up the Blazers. He's right, but not in the way he thinks. It won't break my heart if Olshey and Stotts are gone this summer.

I think breaking up this team would be stupid. Knee-jerk reactions is what turn you into the Sacramento Kings.

This team is devastated by injuries. It's underperforming, but the roster is very intriguing and I think can compete with pretty much anyone when healthy. Now, that might be next year, when pretty much everyone still will be back. So why the heck do you make some kind of panic trade or break the team up when you have such a good, healthy roster? Barkley's way off-base on this.

Changes, if any, are off the court, not with the roster.

 

[TBpup]

I think breaking up this team would be stupid. Knee-jerk reactions is what turn you into the Sacramento Kings.

This team is devastated by injuries. It's underperforming, but the roster is very intriguing and I think can compete with pretty much anyone when healthy. Now, that might be next year, when pretty much everyone still will be back. So why the heck do you make some kind of panic trade or break the team up when you have such a good, healthy roster? Barkley's way off-base on this.

Changes, if any, are off the court, not with the roster.

1-16 in closeout Playoff series in the last 4 years and that one win was with Steph Curry out. Not sure what is different even when they were more healthy.

 

[B-Roy]

I think breaking up this team would be stupid. Knee-jerk reactions is what turn you into the Sacramento Kings.

This team is devastated by injuries. It's underperforming, but the roster is very intriguing and I think can compete with pretty much anyone when healthy. Now, that might be next year, when pretty much everyone still will be back. So why the heck do you make some kind of panic trade or break the team up when you have such a good, healthy roster? Barkley's way off-base on this.

Changes, if any, are off the court, not with the roster.

What constitutes breaking up this team? Because we lost 7 rotation players this year and in most cases that would constitute a major "rehaul".

 

[DDolla]

I would have turn my tv off if not for Kristen Ledlow. Oh well, on to the next one and Suns is not going to be easy

 

[Chris Craig]

I think breaking up this team would be stupid. Knee-jerk reactions is what turn you into the Sacramento Kings.

This team is devastated by injuries. It's underperforming, but the roster is very intriguing and I think can compete with pretty much anyone when healthy. Now, that might be next year, when pretty much everyone still will be back. So why the heck do you make some kind of panic trade or break the team up when you have such a good, healthy roster? Barkley's way off-base on this.

Changes, if any, are off the court, not with the roster.

Whiteside and Bazemore won't be back next year. I doubt Hezonja or Tolliver will be either.

 

[HolyBackboard]

That was like "I don't care."

I'm not an anti-Stotts guy. There are things I disagree with him on, but, in general, I don't think he's terrible. But this team's hustle and body language and the way it's consistently knuckled under at the first tough stretch every game is very concerning to me.

Yeah, I know injuries. I also know this team still is pretty talented and underperforming by A LOT right now.

This was something I was concerned about. When all of the injuries hit in 2009-10, we still won 50+ games and pushed the Suns (3 seed, WCF participant) to 6 games because Nate McMillan was a motivator and that team scrapped their butts off. I'm really not liking what I'm seeing out of this roster at the moment. No one rebounds (aside from Hassan) and the decision-making on defense is abysmal ... how do they watch film the day after and not see what we're all seeing. I understand we're going to be out-manned most nights, but we're not even doing the little things right. I'm not seeing how Nurk fixes all or any of this ...

 

[AldoTrapani]

If your stars aren't playing like stars, you aren't winning many games

Thats dame and Cj problem. Whiteside and Melo did everything

 

[PCmor7]

Trent - for someone who is supposed to be a shooter, he can't his sh!t.

To be fair, it's hard for me to expect someone like him to come in and be Rodney Hood when his minutes are sporadic and vary greatly from night to night.

He's one of those guys who suffer from Stotts hesitance to let young guys play and grow unless he's forced to. He's looked decent at times this season, actually had a couple games where he played a lot better than I expected under the circumstances. With the way this team is playing, I don't see a reason to hold him back. We're letting Ant play through not seeing a shot he doesn't like.

 

[twobullz]

I think breaking up this team would be stupid. Knee-jerk reactions is what turn you into the Sacramento Kings.

This team is devastated by injuries. It's underperforming, but the roster is very intriguing and I think can compete with pretty much anyone when healthy. Now, that might be next year, when pretty much everyone still will be back. So why the heck do you make some kind of panic trade or break the team up when you have such a good, healthy roster? Barkley's way off-base on this.

Changes, if any, are off the court, not with the roster.

I disagree. I think the changes have to be on the court. You have to have some sort of threat off the bench. If your bench doesn't score you are not going to win many games. I think to much pressure is being put on Ant. He can't be the only threat to score off the bench.

I don't think we need a superstar trade, we need to do a trade like last year's Swanigan for Skal.

 

[blazerkor]

The game got close in the third but we just couldn't get there. Dame had an off shooting night, they really tried to take him away. In my opinion he did what he should have by distributing the ball with 11 assists and only two turnovers. Our other shooters weren't hitting shots that were open. All and all I don't take much from this game. They're a better team than us with our injuries. We got it close but got closed out by a better team.

 

[MickZagger]

Rollover has my dream job. Signs a contract. Clanks a bunch of 3’s and then gets to chill on the bench and travel around with a bunch of NBA ballers while enjoying all the luxuries.

Edit: I meant Tolliver

 

[PCmor7]

Obviously our bench is lacking (to say the least) with the injuries that we have, but 9 points for the game!? And all by 1 guy.....

To me, Skal's biggest asset is his shooting touch. Did he take one shot tonight?

As much as he is playing, he should be scoring at least 5 points every game.

 

[HailBlazers]

The game got close in the third but we just couldn't get there. Dame had an off shooting night, they really tried to take him away. In my opinion he did what he should have by distributing the ball with 11 assists and only two turnovers. Our other shooters weren't hitting shots that were open. All and all I don't take much from this game. They're a better team than us with our injuries. We got it close but got closed out by a better team.

He should have had 22 assists instead of chucking when we were close to coming back.

 

[BBert]

Blazers are allergic to defense.

Riddle me this, Bonesman: How is it that our center kept ending up on an island covering a guard at the 3 point line all night long, almost always resulting in an easy score for the bad guys?

 

[TBpup]

To be fair, it's hard for me to expect someone like him to come in and be Rodney Hood when his minutes are sporadic and vary greatly from night to night.

He's one of those guys who suffer from Stotts hesitance to let young guys play and grow unless he's forced to. He's looked decent at times this season, actually had a couple games where he played a lot better than I expected under the circumstances. With the way this team is playing, I don't see a reason to hold him back. We're letting Ant play through not seeing a shot he doesn't like.

Completely agree it's tough with spot/garbage minutes....but if you can shoot, you can shoot. Occassionaly you are going to get hot a'la Jake Layman. But he is averaging 8 MPG in his career so there are times he gets the opportunity....and is a career 35% shooter. Given that his rep was as a shooter, I was expecting at least more glimpses of that ability.

 

[wizenheimer]

-- Dame and CJ need to start using their skills to get to the line. I'm sorry, but doing that gets us easy shots and stunts opponents' runs, and they get defenders off-balance so much they definitely can draw the contact.

I have no clue why you chose to include Dame in that criticism...?

Dame is 7th in the NBA in FTA, and he's 5th in made FT's because he's 4th in the league in FT%. He's great at this

CJ is the Blazer dead zone of FTA and drawing fouls...he's really bad at it, especially considering how much time he spends with the ball in his hand

look at the FT rates on the team:

Damian Lillard .408
Hassan Whiteside .351
Zach Collins .316
Nassir Little .289
Mario Hezonja .278
Kent Bazemore .243
Carmelo Anthony .219
Skal Labissière .198
Anfernee Simons .186
Anthony Tolliver .180
Rodney Hood .157
CJ McCollum .109

this is a big reason why CJ should not be going one-on-one as much as he does. He's a clever ball-handler, but all that clever ball-handling results in below average efficiency, and his inability to take contact and get to the foul line is the main reason. His assisted FG rate should be above 65% instead of below 35%

 

[PCmor7]

The game got close in the third but we just couldn't get there. Dame had an off shooting night, they really tried to take him away. In my opinion he did what he should have by distributing the ball with 11 assists and only two turnovers. Our other shooters weren't hitting shots that were open. All and all I don't take much from this game. They're a better team than us with our injuries. We got it close but got closed out by a better team.

Dame drove and got himself caught in the air and tried a desperation pass to Herzonja, who wouldn't have done anything positive even if he got it. Then they hit a 3. Then Dame took a really deep 3 and Ant missed a hot and our defense didn't pick us up and we were toast.

IMO, these are the situations where Dame or CJ really need to work on drawing contact and getting to the line. And I don't want Herzonja ever touching the ball near the bucket after that unnecessary wide-open reverse layup he tried against OKC -- talk about a low-IQ play that really killed our vibe.

 

[bobf]

I would say that this team isn’t talented, is not underperforming, and injuries are masking our horrific offseason. Sure we’ll be much better when Nurk & Collins return. But nothing like a 53+ win team. Unless all our young players develop. Clock is ticking on Dame’s prime and we are wasting time playing has beens and known garbage players just to save face.

 

[wizenheimer]

Typical Dame, he talks a lot on social Media, but i haven't seen him prove his talk on the court

WTF?

 

[blazerkor]

He should have had 22 assists instead of chucking when we were close to coming back.

Shooters need to shoot and he could have had 5 more assists if our other shooters could hit their open threes.

 

[PCmor7]

I have no clue why you chose to include Dame in that criticism...?

Dame is 7th in the NBA in FTA, and he's 5th in made FT's because he's 4th in the league in FT%. He's great at this

CJ is the Blazer dead zone of FTA and drawing fouls...he's really bad at it, especially considering how much time he spends with the ball in his hand

look at the FT rates on the team:

Damian Lillard .408
Hassan Whiteside .351
Zach Collins .316
Nassir Little .289
Mario Hezonja .278
Kent Bazemore .243
Carmelo Anthony .219
Skal Labissière .198
Anfernee Simons .186
Anthony Tolliver .180
Rodney Hood .157
CJ McCollum .109

this is a big reason why CJ should not be going one-on-one as much as he does. He's a clever ball-handler, but all that clever ball-handling results in below average efficiency, and his inability to take contact and get to the foul line is the main reason. His assisted FG rate should be above 65% instead of below 35%

He shoots a lot of FTs in the fourth quarter because when we have the lead and are in close games he's going to get fouled or he shoots them during his scoring spurts and he also shoots a lot of free throws because he plays as many minutes as anyone in the NBA. He needs to draw more when we're struggling to get good shots.

I love Dame. But he's not immune to criticism.

 

[wizenheimer]

He shoots a lot of FTs in the fourth quarter because when we have the lead and are in close games he's going to get fouled or he shoots them during his scoring spurts and he also shoots a lot of free throws because he plays as many minutes as anyone in the NBA. He needs to draw more when we're struggling to get good shots.

I love Dame. But he's not immune to criticism.

I'm not saying he's immune to criticism, but that specific criticism was nonsense