Game Thread Game #3:TRAIL BLAZERS @ LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS OCTOBER 25, 2021 - MONDAY, 7:30 PM, ROOT SPORTS, NBATV (2 Viewers)

[Tince]

If Dame went 8/8, we would’ve won going away. Defense would’ve been better cuz Clippers have to take ball out of net. Offensively, it would’ve had the Clippers scrambling for help. Also we wouldn’t have played the scrubs in the 4th. This loss was solely on Dame in my opinion.

That's certainly a theory. We saw many of the same team/roster issues last night that we saw in 5 of the previous 6 games this season, so I'm not ready to point to one person.

 

[Tince]

lol sure

Care to make a friendly wager on our playoff success this year now that we've got rid of the one thing holding us back in your opinion? Seems like a WCF appearance should be a near lock, right?

 

[Tince]

I don't remember it that way. The team was coached by Canales and then they made a number of changes.

I may have worded my point poorly.

I meant to say that a lot of people were happy about how much better Stotts was in his first year or two compared to Nate (who was too rigid according to some). That eventually gave way over time when people wanted to look for a reason why our team wasn't talent enough to contend. This same trend has basically repeated itself for 20 years. People want to believe their teams players are better than they are and that a small coaching change/bench addition will vault them into contending status.

 

[SharpesTriumph]

Can't be 10-0. It's only been 2 seasons (total of 6 games he's played in before this year).

He is 7-0 tho.

It was 9-0 or 10-0 stat NBATV showed during the game... But maybe that includes his last few regular season games in OKC vs Portland. Although those couple were before Dame broke that team!

 

[SharpesTriumph]

nope, I'm not writing off anything based upon the three games Billups has coached....I'm just skeptical of CJ changing based upon the 590 games he's played.

I am kind of amazed at how many people are imagining that a 1st time head coach, who actually has less than a year of coaching experience, on any level, possesses some metaphysical/magical powers that will transform the established games of veteran players almost instantly

it appears that Stotts had such a toxic reputation in the minds of so many fans (I wanted him gone myself) that he's getting no credit at all for the offensive games of players like Dame and CJ. It is possible that he actually knew what he was doing on the offensive end. I mean, everything Dame has acheived so far he did under Stotts

We didn't see any growth in Dame or CJ game the last few years under Stotts. Which is very normal, people often need a new voice to have a significant change of their approach and improve.

Chauncy is very articulate, intelligent, observant, and detailed with his responses to coaching questions; I haven't seen that in a Blazers head coach before, so that is a big part of why I and I'd assume others have high hopes. He also just has an "IT" factor of a leader that you can see right away in every action he takes, similar to Dame.

But who knows, maybe Chauncy won't get anything better out of DameCJ or maybe they will be worse. It was obvious we were not going to see a large improvement of DameCJ with another year of Stotts so its worth seeing what a change looks like. Especially if we trade one of DameCJ; I will want to have known we gave them chances with two coaches. If we traded one of DameCJ last summer and they had a dominant Finals MVP season for another franchise I'd always regret not seeing what could've been in Portland.