I agree with your assessment of Stotts. Memphis has a weakness that's plagued them in the 2nd half of the season - you can take them out of their offense by pressuring their backcourt. They don't have dynamic playmakers or dead eye shooters on the perimeter so you can get away with extending your defense & anticipating passing lanes. Their offense after the AS game was really bad. But we don't even try to exploit this. We let them walk it up & throw it into the post with no resistance. Even with Conley & Udrich out, 3rd string Calathes went wherever he wanted with the ball. At least we finally TRIED to show full court pressure in the 4th, but it was weak. Obviously it's not something we work on that much, which is unfortunate because that's the way to beat the Grizz. I fully expect the Warriors to fluster the Grizz by pressuring/trapping them defensively. It's kind of the blueprint for how to beat them. Nobody lets them walk it up and concedes passing lanes into the post, except us. 7 times we've seen the same thing. No adjustments have been made, few even attempted. Stotts likes to say "we're not going to change who we are because of who we're playing." That's not acceptable, especially when you're playing a team that has proven over, & over, & over that they are better than us at the style we're playing. With the way they play defense, we needed to get extra possessions to compete in this series. Forcing some turnovers would have been nice. I'm not ok with chalking that up to "that's not who we are", and I'm not ok with how (even before Wes went down) teams were able to chase our shooters off the 3pt line, while being able to double team LA + blanket Dame on the perimeter. What Terry calls "sticking to our principles" I call not being able to make adjustments. I doubt the Blazers will show him the door. They just gave him an extension last summer & it wouldn't be very "Spurs-like" (the model organization we're trying to follow) to let a coach go after winning a division title. Only way is if Dame & LA voice frustrations on their exit interviews. They look frustrated, especially Dame, who has been getting lit up by fans/media for his defense. He is a liability on that end for sure, but the way he's coached to defend the pick & roll really makes him look a lot worse than he is. Neither has criticized the coach (as far as we know) & it may never happen, but that's the only way I could see Stotts getting let go.
Assuming he's back next season, we can only hope he uses the offseason to add more wrinkles to his style of play. Good teams play good defense and can force turnovers, plain & simple. We we're dead last in the league for the 2nd year in a row at forcing turnovers. At the very least we need to bring in an assistant to shore up our defense. It'll be interesting to see what everyone says when it's over. The easy thing to do is to pin all of our 2nd half/post season struggles on the injuries. Obviously losing Wes was devastating, but if that's how Stotts & Olshey spin ALL of the team's struggles it'll be disappointing. Last night with our backs against the wall we had an opportunity when Conley went down. 3rd string PG, a double digit deficit, & we can't force him into a single turnover? That's not just missing Wes, or not having the right personnel, that is because we haven't worked enough on playing defense like that. There's no excuse for that. We have been thoroughly outplayed in this series, but a lot of that is related to how bad we're being out-coached & out-schemed. Of all the frustrations from this season, the worst for me is the "Groundhog Day" feeling of not being able to adapt & make adjustments. Hopefully the last 2 months + this series are opening some eyes & isn't reduced to "if only we still had Wes . . . ". If we do get swept or lose in 5, it does seem like Allen & Olshey can feel the ground shaking. Both of our All Stars are demoralized to the point where 1 may bolt. The gravity feels heavier than getting blown out/taught a playoff lesson by the Spurs last year. Part of that should be to change the coach or make the coach change.
