Game Thread PLAYOFFS: ROUND 1, GAME 3: NUGGETS @ BLAZERS - MAY 27, 2021 - THURSDAY, 7:30, NBATV & NBCSNW

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Now that we've experienced a win and a loss, how far do you think POR will go in the Playoffs?

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BonesJones said:
The sad thing is that it wasn't out of character for this team for a playoff game. Stagnant, low ball-movement offense doesnt succeed in the playoffs. It's not a surprise that we had 15 less turnovers in Game 1 when we moved the ball well.
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Actually, that many turnovers were quite out of character for this franchise in the post season. I just looked at box scores starting with the Pelicans sweep, and there were only 2 other games where we logged more than 20 turnovers.

Teams that move the ball well also tend to have a lot more turnovers. Through their glory years, Golden State, despite being so insanely talented, were always in the bottom half of the league in this aspect.

Iso-heavy teams like Portland or the Harden Rockets have many flaws, but turnovers aren't one of them. If you only have the ball in the hands of elite ball handlers who aren't passing much, you just don't tend to lose the ball much. If Dame or CJ is confronted with a risky pass or a shot, they take the shot every time. (Draymond Green doesn't even consider the shot.)

Dame had 3 turnovers, but they were pretty forgivable given how much he controlled the ball and generated 10 assists and 42 points.

CJ and Roco accounted for nearly half the team's turnovers. Those turnovers just pissed all over the hard work Dame was doing. It made it all so pointless.

Having Dame dominate the ball less doesn't seem to be the solution to the turnover problem. Getting our guys to shake it off and move on seems like a much better option at this point.

Next year hopefully we have a new coach with a more egalitarian philosophy about passing (and hopefully CJ is gone). But for now I don't think there's much reason to panic.

Portland had 6 turnovers in game 1, and 21 in game 2. That averages out to 13, barely above the 11 that is what they average over the season, which was the lowest in the league.
 
mook said:
I just looked at box scores starting with the Pelicans sweep, and there were only 2 other games where we logged more than 20 turnovers.
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Tough to compare a team from 4-5 years ago to what they are now as well.
 
mook said:
Actually, that many turnovers were quite out of character for this franchise in the post season. I just looked at box scores starting with the Pelicans sweep, and there were only 2 other games where we logged more than 20 turnovers.

Teams that move the ball well also tend to have a lot more turnovers. Through their glory years, Golden State, despite being so insanely talented, were always in the bottom half of the league in this aspect.

Iso-heavy teams like Portland or the Harden Rockets have many flaws, but turnovers aren't one of them. If you only have the ball in the hands of elite ball handlers who aren't passing much, you just don't tend to lose the ball much. If Dame or CJ is confronted with a risky pass or a shot, they take the shot every time. (Draymond Green doesn't even consider the shot.)

Dame had 3 turnovers, but they were pretty forgivable given how much he controlled the ball and generated 10 assists and 42 points.

CJ and Roco accounted for nearly half the team's turnovers. Those turnovers just pissed all over the hard work Dame was doing. It made it all so pointless.

Having Dame dominate the ball less doesn't seem to be the solution to the turnover problem. Getting our guys to shake it off and move on seems like a much better option at this point.

Next year hopefully we have a new coach with a more egalitarian philosophy about passing (and hopefully CJ is gone). But for now I don't think there's much reason to panic.

Portland had 6 turnovers in game 1, and 21 in game 2. That averages out to 13, barely above the 11 that is what they average over the season, which was the lowest in the league.
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Okay, now give me their turnover averages from regular season to the playoffs and lets see how much it increased. That's the only way to judge my hypothesis that running Dame into trap after trap and putting the team in a situation where it's a struggle to create legitimate offense increases turnovers in the playoffs.
 
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BonesJones said:
Didnt place all the blame on him, but you do realize he can coach medciore when we win, and he can coach bad when we lose, right? Am I supposed to give him credit for being mediocre in order to acknowledge that he coached poorly in Game 2? How exactly does this work?
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All coaches get way to much credit win or lose, its the players, especially in todays game. Stevens will be swept, Lue with a Super Team just lost two home court games to a team thats never been out of the playoffs in 9 years. He cant be that bad of a coach, his players aren not jiving. just my opinion. The whole league minus maybe three teams are average at best.
 
mook said:
I'm not really sure that Stotts should make many adjustments. 21 turnovers was extremely uncharacteristic of this team--we lead the league in fewest per game. It got the team completely out of its normal offensive rhythm, and it led to a lot of easy baskets for the Nugs. The teams had similar rebounding and EFG% numbers--we just gave them the ball an extra 11 times.

If Stotts starts changing lineups significantly or running new plays, it's more likely that turnovers continue to be a problem as guys are playing outside what they are used to. Worse, it'll feel like a panic move.

One change I would consider is swapping out Kanter for Hollis-Jefferson when Jokic sits. I prefer Kanter's sizes in being physical with Jokic when Nurk needs a blow, but Kanter is flat out terrible when there is no center for him to guard. This is a pretty minor adjustment though. (Kanter is a regular season backup center. Somebody who beasts on a random Tuesday night when the other team is on a back-to-back. He is not somebody you want the other team to significantly game plan for because of all his defensive woes.)

Sure, pull CJ and Roco especially aside and point out the 9 turnovers they had between them. Throw Jones in again if we're getting killed by their size. Give RHJ all the small-ball center minutes.

But basically play the team that got you here, and play the way they're used to.
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I would advocate playing RHJ even against Jokic, but that would require a completely different kind of defense, with more players involved and having to read and react quickly. The team has not been prepared for that.
 
Hoopguru said:
The whole league minus maybe three teams are average at best.
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I see it differently. The whole league are highly skilled professional NBA players that are the very best in the entire world and three of those teams are stacked with some of the best that have ever played the game. Nobody not even the last spot on the roster is "average at best" the way I see it. The difference between winning and losing isn't even skill for the most part. It's court presence and mental fortitude with some luck thrown in. Lebron isn't the best three point shooter but you absolutely do not leave him open with the game on the line in the last minute from deep. He will make that shot every time (as we witnessed last night). He lives for that shot and the result.
 
Fairly-Hard said:
I see it differently. The whole league are highly skilled professional NBA players that are the very best in the entire world and three of those teams are stacked with some of the best that have ever played the game. Nobody not even the last spot on the roster is "average at best" the way I see it. The difference between winning and losing isn't even skill for the most part. It's court presence and mental fortitude with some luck thrown in. Lebron isn't the best three point shooter but you absolutely do not leave him open with the game on the line in the last minute from deep. He will make that shot every time (as we witnessed last night). He lives for that shot and the result.
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I should have prefaced against the other NBA teams.
For sure all are world class best at their craft.
 
UKRAINEFAN said:
I would advocate playing RHJ even against Jokic, but that would require a completely different kind of defense, with more players involved and having to read and react quickly. The team has not been prepared for that.
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Yeah, I wish we'd practiced more small ball defense through the season, as it was obviously going to come into play on any kind of deep playoff run. But we are where we are.
 
BonesJones said:
Okay, now give me their turnover averages from regular season to the playoffs and lets see how much it increased. That's three only washy to judge my hypothesis that running Dame into trap after trap and putting the team in a situation where it's a struggle to create legitimate offense increases turnovers in the playoffs.
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Man you are a broken record. I feel like I can write your posts before you do. I don't know why I bother to reply. Don't you get bored of it? I do.
 
Blazers in the past have answered the challenge in the playoffs when the series starts getting chippy. The OKC series a couple years back. I remember there was constant trash talk and scuffles.

There’s a misconception throughout the league that our team is soft and can get thrown of their game with physical trash talking basketball. Particularly our guards.
 
MickZagger said:
Blazers in the past have answered the challenge in the playoffs when the series starts getting chippy. The OKC series a couple years back. I remember there was constant trash talk and scuffles.

There’s a misconception throughout the league that our team is soft and can get thrown of their game with physical trash talking basketball. Particularly our guards.
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I'm not sure that is a misconception. Blazers are generally very soft.

Dame can get upset and go supernova - but he's also just as likely to start complaining to the refs on every single play.
CJ finds was to commit a dirty foul on the opponent.
Nurk is willing to to play rough - but he quickly gets in foul trouble, which takes him out of the game (physically & mentally).
Norm - it's still too early to really see his tendencies in his role for the Blazers.
No one else on the team seems to step up when things get hard/physical.

Outside of Dame (on occasion), this team IS soft.
 
tester551 said:
I'm not sure that is a misconception. Blazers are generally very soft.

Dame can get upset and go supernova - but he's also just as likely to start complaining to the refs on every single play.
CJ finds was to commit a dirty foul on the opponent.
Nurk is willing to to play rough - but he quickly gets in foul trouble, which takes him out of the game (physically & mentally).
Norm - it's still too early to really see his tendencies in his role for the Blazers.
No one else on the team seems to step up when things get hard/physical.

Outside of Dame (on occasion), this team IS soft.
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When the team plays best is when they stay strong together and don't even address the refs. Totally agree with you that they can get taken out of their game.
 
SlyPokerDog said:
What's going on with you and Evanem?
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He's part of a group that shits on people who don't agree with him and worship everything they say. It's fine that they tried to do it to Torey and I since I joined Twitter two years ago because we don't like Stotts and didn't immediately grovel at the feet of people like him and others who were used to their word being taken as gospel and never questioned but after witnessing them completely bully people on there all while trying to claim they're the impartial ones who welcome all view points, I started calling out their bullshit and sticking up for those they were abusing. They're two-faced hypocrites who will then accuse the person calling them out of ruining Blazers Twitter. Just got sick of it. That makes me "not fun at parties." So yeah, the "cool" kids that still care about that kind of stuff as adults like we're still back in high school don't like me. Oh, no, lol!

Privately Evanem apologized and tried to act like we'd be good friends if we hung out in real life all while trying to still look cool in front of his friends publicly. So yeah, like I said two-faced.
 
So the Nuggets will put Gordon again to guard Lillard like what the Clippers do. This is not new to Stotts, let’s see how Dame adjust.
 
mook said:
Man you are a broken record. I feel like I can write your posts before you do. I don't know why I bother to reply. Don't you get bored of it? I do.
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You provided all these stats and I ask for the one relative to the discussion and you post this? Cant have a basketball discussion apparently? Shit, if you hate conversing with me why DID you reply? So many questions.
 
blazerkor said:
If we're cool with Nurk's lack of mobility because he is a true big then there aren't any other fatal flaws with his game. The guy gets up and finishes with authority just fine when he wants to. So you don't have to go out and look for another C. You have to get a coach that will not put up with him finishing weak in the paint ever let alone most of the time, a coach that doesn't think the term accountability is outdated. You also need a coach that realizes how much better the guy is when he is engaged in facilitating the offense and doesn't go away from that a game after having great success with it.

In other words you don't give up on Nurk, you move on from Stotts.
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My biggest peeve with Nurk is his lazy free throw shooting. Too often he goes to the line, doesn't make the effort to focus and feel the shot, and just launches the ball at the rim. And misses the shot. Drives me nuts when he does that.
 
BBert said:
My biggest peeve with Nurk is his lazy free throw shooting. Too often he goes to the line, doesn't make the effort to focus and feel the shot, and just launches the ball at the rim. And misses the shot. Drives me nuts when he does that.
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That's very similar to the way he finishes or more accurately doesn't finish around the hole. Any coach worth having would put an end to those things but we have a cheerleader and not a boss as our coach right now and our cheerleader doesn't believe in accountability so how would anyone ever move on from bad habits that they don't see as bad habits without a coach holding their feet to the fire.
 
BonesJones said:
Okay, now give me their turnover averages from regular season to the playoffs and lets see how much it increased. That's the only way to judge my hypothesis that running Dame into trap after trap and putting the team in a situation where it's a struggle to create legitimate offense increases turnovers in the playoffs.
Click to expand...
I hate to say it Dame and CJ runs there self into traps plus they get trap the worse place possibly places. They can pass the ball before they get over half court but they dominant the ball so much when they got it in there hands they rather dribble out of trouble then pass the ball before trouble. Now I do think it is Stotts fault for not stress it during timeouts. We can speculate what they do or not what in practice.
 
mook said:
Actually, that many turnovers were quite out of character for this franchise in the post season. I just looked at box scores starting with the Pelicans sweep, and there were only 2 other games where we logged more than 20 turnovers.

Teams that move the ball well also tend to have a lot more turnovers. Through their glory years, Golden State, despite being so insanely talented, were always in the bottom half of the league in this aspect.

Iso-heavy teams like Portland or the Harden Rockets have many flaws, but turnovers aren't one of them. If you only have the ball in the hands of elite ball handlers who aren't passing much, you just don't tend to lose the ball much. If Dame or CJ is confronted with a risky pass or a shot, they take the shot every time. (Draymond Green doesn't even consider the shot.)

Dame had 3 turnovers, but they were pretty forgivable given how much he controlled the ball and generated 10 assists and 42 points.

CJ and Roco accounted for nearly half the team's turnovers. Those turnovers just pissed all over the hard work Dame was doing. It made it all so pointless.

Having Dame dominate the ball less doesn't seem to be the solution to the turnover problem. Getting our guys to shake it off and move on seems like a much better option at this point.

Next year hopefully we have a new coach with a more egalitarian philosophy about passing (and hopefully CJ is gone). But for now I don't think there's much reason to panic.

Portland had 6 turnovers in game 1, and 21 in game 2. That averages out to 13, barely above the 11 that is what they average over the season, which was the lowest in the league.
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Regarding the Pelicans series, there was a point in game 3 (I think) where like 5 or 6 possessions were all turnovers or something like that. It was beyond frustrating to watch.
 
James lamphear said:
I hate to say it Dame and CJ runs there self into traps plus they get trap the worse place possibly places. They can pass the ball before they get over half court but they dominant the ball so much when they got it in there hands they rather dribble out of trouble then pass the ball before trouble. Now I do think it is Stotts fault for not stress it during timeouts. We can speculate what they do or not what in practice.
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Stotts should actually call a set then instead of having them run off pick n rolls 40ft away from the rim. Doesn't seem too difficult.
 
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