Positives from the Blazers Opening Night Loss?

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BonesJones

BonesJones

https://www.youtube.com/c/blazersuprise
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Just dropped an article giving some positive things I noticed from last night's loss:

https://www.blazersuprise.com/five-positives-from-the-portland-trail-blazers-opening-night-loss

The Blazers had a defensive rating (DRTG) of 96.9 in the halfcourt during the contest (defensive rating is the amount of points a team gives up per 100 possessions). To put this stat in context, the Los Angeles Lakers had the best defense in the league last season with a DRTG of 107.1. The Blazers were a whole 10 points better per 100 possessions than the best defense in the league last year when defending in the halfcourt. So how did the Kings put 124 on the scoreboard? Transition. The Blazers had a 181 DRTG when defending the Kings in transition. It’d be hard for the Blazers to play worse transition defense than they did last night.

Why is this encouraging? Quite simply, the Blazers were a horrible halfcourt defense last year. They consistently got picked apart in the pick n roll and struggled with even simple rotations. Last night, I saw a different Blazer team for big portions of the game. There were still boneheaded mistakes (such as Robert Covington overhelping off a hot-shooting Harrison Barnes), but Chauncey Billups’ aggressive pick-n-roll defense was effective, and the backside rotations behind it looked better than they ever did last season. For a team learning a new defensive system to show the improvement they did in game one is encouraging. Now they have to clean up their transition defense, which is easier than learning the intricacies of a half-court scheme.
Click to expand...

What were some positives you took away from the loss?
 
I though Nas and Ant looked better, at least on offense, and Ant displayed some decent court vision as well as possibly breaking his out of one-trick pony stereotype

Zeller looked active

hard to take a lot of positives from the starters when they lose, at home, to the Kings
 
Id say CJ looks poised to have another start like last year, which will be huge if Dames slow to get going.

side question. If Cj starts hot hot, Does that waver Moreys stance?
 
That it's only game 1 and there's 29 games to go before seeing anything definitive.
 
I think the bench shows a lot of promise, Ant looked bigger and faster. I saw some nice steals that should've led to points, but the awful shooting all around prevented that.
 
Individual performances have been decent. Simons and Little are making an impact. Zeller can move well and i like the combination with Nance as a solid second unit. I'd like to ride the Nurk/Roco first unit and Zeller/Nance second unit for 20 games at least but there might be a point they go to Nurk and Nance? I did see those two miss some opportunities and it even looked like Nance was a little upset at one point with Nurk for missing an easy pass to Nance for a Layup or Dunk.
Nurk is active but we all know Nurk by now. Some issues die hard. He needs to dunk the ball. Even more so Nurk needs to quit talking to refs. He's way too worried about the missed call.

CJ strong out of the gate. If CJ plays this well and Dame comes into form they will be able to score.

Billups went with the switch a bunch more than i thought he would. Not sure this team can do that consistently? They seem to be missing the help defense and I'm not sure exactly what scheme they can maintain? When they collapse they leave a wide open look from three available and they cannot trust help defense or their Center to cover well.
My opinion is they need at least one very strong on ball defender.

Last i like that they didn't quit and are working hard to improve. My hope is it will come.
 
We're losing pretty instead of winning ugly!

We needed you starting these threads the last 8 years!
 
They attacked and didn’t just settle for jumpers. They shot 23 free throws. If they average that during the season they would be borderline top 5 in that category. Powell, Roco, and Lillard all had off shooting nights and they were still in a position to tie/win the game despite the Kings having a good shooting night on top of getting to the line nearly 30 times. The fouls should go down as they get more comfortable in the system. They also protected the ball; outside of McCollum no one had more than 1 turnover. Pretty encouraging considering how they’re playing this season.
 
They played through two horrible quarters and still made a game of it with Lillard unable to shoot a 3 all night....Cody Zeller, Ant, Nance and Nas are going to be a good bench mob! They adjusted a bit too late but they did adjust. Nurk didn't foul out when we needed him. Nas was more under control which is good unless you want Snell taking his spot...to me he looks like a young Gerald Wallace in the making...this is his and Ant's year to shine.
 
The way the we comeback and the chances that we have to tie the game. Dame was terrible from 3, which I don’t know if will be a trend at this beginning, or he’s comeback after a bad shooting game (like he usually does) and strikes a good perfomance. We’ll see, Saturday we face Cp3 which I think Dame has a poor record against
 
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