Exclusive Stotts... Can We Gameplan Better For Stars and Stop Giving Up Game Winners?

[Mediocre Man]

Calm down. We've also had our good share of hitting the game winning shot. Offhand, I remember CJ's game winning floater against Dallas and Dame's game winning floater against Denver, both just last year. Giannis and Griffin are currently the top 2 MVP candidates this year so of course, the are going to be tough to stop. Nonetheless, we played OUTSTANDING defense in the second half last night. Before Blake's shot, we had held them to 39 points. Aminu was GREAT on both sides of the ball. And Stotts is one of the best coaches in the league. Every coach has tough losses. Calm down. We've been playing great. Two tough plays against us or we'd be 5-0. It's very very early in the season. Don't overreact to losses, especially in games where we did a lot right.

You telling someone to calm down is probably my favorite thing ever.

 

[Trackjack]

One thing he should have his best defenders on the court and someone longer like turner on the floor on that last defense stance. I properly would call time out either before the free throw or after the 1st miss to go over the defense scheme you wanted to play.

 

[TBpup]

One thing he should have his best defenders on the court and someone longer like turner on the floor on that last defense stance. I properly would call time out either before the free throw or after the 1st miss to go over the defense scheme you wanted to play.

Exactly. Turner was on the bench while CJ/Dame were on the court for a defensive possession. Fail!

 

[Nate]

Yeah it seems like you can either let a superstar “get his” or try to shut the superstar down and make the role players win the game.

Stotts does this crazy scheme where the superstars go off, and the roles players have career nights (Ian Clark, Corey brewer, et al).

He’s also too much of a bitch to bench one of Dame/CJ for defensive purposes, when that’s clearly the right move. With those two, keep whoever has the hot hand in, and let the other rest while someone else plays hard D; even if it’s just 1-2 minutes, that’s huge. And like @TBpup said, even if it’s just one possession!

Tater tots plays checkers. I want Lionel in this mofo.

 

[ripcityboy]

Yeah it seems like you can either let a superstar “get his” or try to shut the superstar down and make the role players win the game.

Stotts does this crazy scheme where the superstars go off, and the roles players have career nights (Ian Clark, Corey brewer, et al).

He’s also too much of a bitch to bench one of Dame/CJ for defensive purposes, when that’s clearly the right move. With those two, keep whoever has the hot hand in, and let the other rest while someone else plays hard D; even if it’s just 1-2 minutes, that’s huge. And like @TBpup said, even if it’s just one possession!

Tater tots plays checkers. I want Lionel in this mofo.

This I don't understand. Why would Dame or CJ coming off hurt for a few minutes hurt their ego? They know what their limitations and every winning teams make quick adjustments at the end of the game. And we are just talking about the diff. between a win and a loss. Terry must think it would hurt his relationship with them.

 

[TBpup]

For whatever reason, he had two of our worst defenders on the court at the same time in the game's most important defensive possession. Who knows exactly why that is. All I know is, it doesn't make much sense.

 

[Nate]

This I don't understand. Why would Dame or CJ coming off hurt for a few minutes for a few their ego? They know what their limitations and every winning teams make quick adjustments at the end of the game. Terry must think it would hurt his relationship with them.

That’s why I want Lionel. He was the pg for one of the best ball moving offensive teams ever, a good defensive coach, a players coach that also is known for being a hard ass, and his name is in the rafters... Idk what else olshey is waiting for.

Apparently the shit show nets didn’t like him cause he was too hard on them lol. That’s practically a bonus.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cb...a-single-player-who-liked-lionel-hollins/amp/

 

[SIeepwalker]

Why are we all acting like Lillard is bad on defense ?

 

[MickZagger]

His hands were tied in that last game by Nurk and Davis in so much foul trouble. He was hesitant to put the rookies in again Griffin, who was already tearing apart our vet big men.

 

[MickZagger]

The ticky tack BS foul calls on Nurkic need to stop. At least 3 of those should have been play on.

 

[Trackjack]

Last year in couple of game he did take both of them at end games for defense purposes but after that he went to the norm. I don't why went norm maybe both them talk to him or they wasn't to happy coming out of the game.

 

[BonesJones]

I know other teams' fans are saying the same thing about how we seem to hit so many game winning shots against them. And stars are stars for a reason. You don't hold stars to single-digits. Dame had one of his worst games ever recently and he still found a way to score a lot in the 2nd half.

Not to say Stotts couldn't improve in some areas (I bet he would admit that) but he is still a top-half coach in this league.

Stars score way above their average against us, though.

 

[BonesJones]

His hands were tied in that last game by Nurk and Davis in so much foul trouble. He was hesitant to put the rookies in again Griffin, who was already tearing apart our vet big men.

Even more reason to double team him.

 

[BonesJones]

Calm down. We've also had our good share of hitting the game winning shot. Offhand, I remember CJ's game winning floater against Dallas and Dame's game winning floater against Denver, both just last year. Giannis and Griffin are currently the top 2 MVP candidates this year so of course, the are going to be tough to stop. Nonetheless, we played OUTSTANDING defense in the second half last night. Before Blake's shot, we had held them to 39 points. Aminu was GREAT on both sides of the ball. And Stotts is one of the best coaches in the league. Every coach has tough losses. Calm down. We've been playing great. Two tough plays against us or we'd be 5-0. It's very very early in the season. Don't overreact to losses, especially in games where we did a lot right.

You're acting like we didn't have a ton of game winners hit against us last year. We had 6 IIRC. It's already 2 this year.

We crumble at the end of games. It's a pattern that we saw last year. We're a good team but if we wanna be great we have to start executing on both sides of the ball in the final minute.

I'm not overreacting to a loss. I'm reacting to a pattern that hasn't changed. If we didn't have this happen so many times last year, I wouldn't have posted this thread.

You're telling me to calm down without fully understanding the context of this thread.

 

[Orion Bailey]

I don't really see anyone point out what actually happened in the last seconds of both losses.
In Milwaukee, CJ dribbled into traffic with a lead and turned it over. How is that on Stotts?

The Clippers game, CJ missed a last second free throw that would have put us up by 3 so at worst it would have went to overtime.
Again, how is that on Stotts?
Seems based on the logic of some posts, CJ should be on the hot seat. If he wants the ball in the final seconds, if he wants to be clutch, then he needs to be clutch and not miss free throws and not dribble into traffic with the lead and turn it over, no?

5 games people. my eyue test says we will be fine. We are winning and in the games we lost until the last second and there are many areas that can still be easily improved with 1) more cohesion as this team continues to gel, and 2) improved shooting(the average mean will come around and Nurk will start making his layups and Dame will make his 3's, etc.)

Basketball is about streaks, and for not really being in a good streak it feels like, we are still winning. When we hit our hot streak we will dominate.
We will be fine.

Young team
Growth will continue
Patience young padawans....

 

[BonesJones]

I don't really see anyone point out what actually happened in the last seconds of both losses.
In Milwaukee, CJ dribbled into traffic with a lead and turned it over. How is that on Stotts?

The Clippers game, CJ missed a last second free throw that would have put us up by 3 so at worst it would have went to overtime.
Again, how is that on Stotts?
Seems based on the logic of some posts, CJ should be on the hot seat. If he wants the ball in the final seconds, if he wants to be clutch, then he needs to be clutch and not miss free throws and not dribble into traffic with the lead and turn it over, no?

5 games people. my eyue test says we will be fine. We are winning and in the games we lost until the last second and there are many areas that can still be easily improved with 1) more cohesion as this team continues to gel, and 2) improved shooting(the average mean will come around and Nurk will start making his layups and Dame will make his 3's, etc.)

Basketball is about streaks, and for not really being in a good streak it feels like, we are still winning. When we hit our hot streak we will dominate.
We will be fine.

Young team
Growth will continue
Patience young padawans....

People seem to ignore that this is a constant pattern.

 

[SIeepwalker]

I don't really see anyone point out what actually happened in the last seconds of both losses.
In Milwaukee, CJ dribbled into traffic with a lead and turned it over. How is that on Stotts?

The Clippers game, CJ missed a last second free throw that would have put us up by 3 so at worst it would have went to overtime.
Again, how is that on Stotts?
Seems based on the logic of some posts, CJ should be on the hot seat. If he wants the ball in the final seconds, if he wants to be clutch, then he needs to be clutch and not miss free throws and not dribble into traffic with the lead and turn it over, no?

5 games people. my eyue test says we will be fine. We are winning and in the games we lost until the last second and there are many areas that can still be easily improved with 1) more cohesion as this team continues to gel, and 2) improved shooting(the average mean will come around and Nurk will start making his layups and Dame will make his 3's, etc.)

Basketball is about streaks, and for not really being in a good streak it feels like, we are still winning. When we hit our hot streak we will dominate.
We will be fine.

Young team
Growth will continue
Patience young padawans....

Generally agree, put you can put it all on CJ, Dame was also very bad in crunch time against the Clippers (an awful long 3 then right after a bad turnover in transition)

 

[KingSpeed]

Stars score way above their average against us, though.

But our overall defense has been elite so maybe that's part of the scheme. Keep in mind, we had

Stars score way above their average against us, though.

Yes but our overall D has been elite so maybe that's part of the scheme. Griffin's 3 obscured the fact that Stotts made great defensive adjustments at halftime. Before that shot, we had held Clippers to 39 second half points. Clippers know that too. They'll be scared of us come playoff time.

 

[BonesJones]

But our overall defense has been elite so maybe that's part of the scheme. Keep in mind, we had

Yes but our overall D has been elite so maybe that's part of the scheme. Griffin's 3 obscured the fact that Stotts made great defensive adjustments at halftime. Before that shot, we had held Clippers to 39 second half points. Clippers know that too. They'll be scared of us come playoff time.

The biggest reason for improvement is an increased defensive focus and commitment to effort from our entire team, especially from Dame. Stotts has shown a willingness to trap more, but is likely not trapping or showing the big on the pick n roll enough, as that type of coverage combined with active hands and top level effort has shown to be very good.

But Stotts is still lacking when it comes to knowing when to double team other teams stars. We almost had DeMarcus Cousins beat us with 39 points after Davis went out. Who's the Pelicans 3rd, 4th, and 5th best players?? Exactly. Why didn't we make Cousins pass the ball to them? We should've doubled him once he got going, but we didn't, and continued to let him beat us. We did this last year when we let him drop 55 points on us...

Griffin did it for a smaller portion of the game, but he was the only one who had anything going in the 4th quarter. When we doubled, it was because we fucked up and somehow had Damian on him, which means it wasn't planned by the coach. However, the couple of times we did double, it resulted in turnovers and great results.

We also should've known to rush Griffin when he was handling the ball trying to come off a screen with 2 seconds let. He barely has time to do anything if we rushed him, let alone get a shot off. If he rushes a pass, it's likely to result in a turnover. If he does get it to another guy, the rest of the defense should've been rushing him as he surely wouldn't have had time for another pass.

Late game execution has always been a problem with Stotts. Who can remember how many late-game inbounds plays we have that we struggle to get the ball in? Good teams never have to use multiple timeouts just to get the ball inbounds, however, with Stotts it happens all the time. Against Milwaukee, that play with CJ where Giannis stole the ball was some sort of busted, broken play.

These things happened all the time last year. Our defense is greatly improved in some aspects. In others, it's the same crappy coaching, and it needs to be fixed. Had it been fixed, we would be 5-0.

 

[Denny Crane]

Consistently winning games 103-101 does take practice and experience.

Play for stops, rebound/no second shots, use the clock to your advantage, offense/defense substitutions, execute on offense, and make your free throws.

It is generally a mistake making a basket to give you a 2 point lead with 6 seconds left - if you could have run out more of the clock.

It doesn't help that our two stars were playing in their 39th minute at the end of the game.

I have zero problem with either Dame or CJ taking the last shot. No matter how the rest of the game went for them.

 

[KingSpeed]

The biggest reason for improvement is an increased defensive focus and commitment to effort from our entire team, especially from Dame. Stotts has shown a willingness to trap more, but is likely not trapping or showing the big on the pick n roll enough, as that type of coverage combined with active hands and top level effort has shown to be very good.

But Stotts is still lacking when it comes to knowing when to double team other teams stars. We almost had DeMarcus Cousins beat us with 39 points after Davis went out. Who's the Pelicans 3rd, 4th, and 5th best players?? Exactly. .

Ask Cleveland. Tonight, Jrue Holliday had 29 points and Etwan Moore had 24 points. Exactly indeed. Not against us though. Good defense. Cousins didn't almost beat us. He chucked threes and we won comfortably by 10.

 

[BonesJones]

Ask Cleveland. Tonight, Jrue Holliday had 29 points and Etwan Moore had 24 points. Exactly indeed. Not against us though. Good defense. Cousins didn't almost beat us. He chucked threes and we won comfortably by 10.

Yes, sometimes role players will beat you. But Griffin/Cousins backing down Davis to the rim because there's no double, which results in an easy layup, is more likely to be successful than making someone like E'Twaun Moore beat them.

 

[SIeepwalker]

Ask Cleveland. Tonight, Jrue Holliday had 29 points and Etwan Moore had 24 points. Exactly indeed. Not against us though. Good defense. Cousins didn't almost beat us. He chucked threes and we won comfortably by 10.

oh come on, you watched the game didn't you ?

 

[BonesJones]

Ask Cleveland. Tonight, Jrue Holliday had 29 points and Etwan Moore had 24 points. Exactly indeed. Not against us though. Good defense. Cousins didn't almost beat us. He chucked threes and we won comfortably by 10.

That's why you double sometimes to make the opposing play think about the potential of a double team's coming on possessions where instead the help defense is flashing while playing the passing lane. This doesn't allow the opposing player to get comfortable or build a rythym.

But stars won't worry about getting doubled by us after they've hit 40 points in the game and haven't seen more than 1 or 2 double teams.

 

[KingSpeed]

Consistently winning games 103-101 does take practice and experience.

Play for stops, rebound/no second shots, use the clock to your advantage, offense/defense substitutions, execute on offense, and make your free throws.

It is generally a mistake making a basket to give you a 2 point lead with 6 seconds left - if you could have run out more of the clock.

It doesn't help that our two stars were playing in their 39th minute at the end of the game.

I have zero problem with either Dame or CJ taking the last shot. No matter how the rest of the game went for them.

That didn't happen. They fouled us.

And we have been on the other side of this. We spoiled Dirk's best game of the year last year when CJ hit a floater at the buzzer. Dame made game winning floater too against Denver.

 

[KingSpeed]

oh come on, you watched the game didn't you ?

I was at the game. Defense stellar. Bench stellar. Rebounding dominant. Never worried.

 

[KingSpeed]

Yes, sometimes role players will beat you. But Griffin/Cousins backing down Davis to the rim because there's no double, which results in an easy layup, is more likely to be successful than making someone like E'Twaun Moore beat them.

Tonight AD, Cousins AND Moore and Holliday went off. We didn't let that shit happen. And Jrue Holliday is former All Star. Not a role player. Geezus. I hate to say "Learn the game" but cmon...

 

[KingSpeed]

That's why you double sometimes to make the opposing play think about the potential of a double team's coming on possessions where instead the help defense is flashing while playing the passing lane. This doesn't allow the opposing player to get comfortable or build a rythym.

But stars won't worry about getting doubled by us after they've hit 40 points in the game and haven't seen more than 1 or 2 double teams.

Only 1 player scored 40 against us this season and Horrible Lillard scored as much as Superstar Blake on Thursday.

 

[SIeepwalker]

Tonight AD, Cousins AND Moore and Holliday went off. We didn't let that shit happen. And Jrue Holliday is former All Star. Not a role player. Geezus. I hate to say "Learn the game" but cmon...

The key word here is former

 

[KingSpeed]

Who won title last year? Did they shut down the opposing team's star in the Finals? Just wondering...