The Division lead

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S550 said:
Thr simple problem why we suck lately is Damian Lillard. It's not a coincidence the correlation of his falling game and our struggles coming together. At this point Lillard hasn't played like a superstar for a long time. A very long time. It's past slumping it's more to the point it just might be who he is..

Ever since that Laker game in LA he's been atrocious. Dirty little secret around blazer land is Lillard might have been figured out or has reached a point he doesn't care anymore.
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Dame has not been "atrocious". He's actually shooting .475 in February & averaging 20 PPG, DESPITE being way off target from deep (.217 in Feb & .281 in Jan from 3 pt range). He's not draining those almost ridiculously long/difficult shots down the stretch of these games. I'll admit, it's strange NOT to see him not come through. We have come to expect the improbable from him. 18 games ago, the moniker of "most clutch in the NBA" wasn't just being tossed around by Blazer fans. What's changed? Long and short, nobody is letting him get clean looks anymore on the perimeter, especially late in games. With Batum's struggles, & with injuries to others we aren't able to make teams pay for overplaying Dame. That's part isn't on him. He has struggled shooting the ball, but I don't believe a 20% 3 pt shooter "just might be who he is". And what makes you say he doesn't care anymore? Did you see his reaction when he got pulled with 3 min left in the 3rd last night when he was red-hot? I think it's the opposite - he's pressing too much trying to carry a struggling team & show the world he's a LEGIT (not injury replacement caliber) All Star. The dirty little secret around Blazer land to me is that if force the ball out of Lillard's hands the SG/SF aren't going to consistently make plays on the perimeter to beat you.
 
Kaydow said:
Dame has not been "atrocious". He's actually shooting .475 in February & averaging 20 PPG, DESPITE being way off target from deep (.217 in Feb & .281 in Jan from 3 pt range). He's not draining those almost ridiculously long/difficult shots down the stretch of these games. I'll admit, it's strange NOT to see him not come through. We have come to expect the improbable from him. 18 games ago, the moniker of "most clutch in the NBA" wasn't just being tossed around by Blazer fans. What's changed? Long and short, nobody is letting him get clean looks anymore on the perimeter, especially late in games. With Batum's struggles, & with injuries to others we aren't able to make teams pay for overplaying Dame. That's part isn't on him. He has struggled shooting the ball, but I don't believe a 20% 3 pt shooter "just might be who he is". And what makes you say he doesn't care anymore? Did you see his reaction when he got pulled with 3 min left in the 3rd last night when he was red-hot? I think it's the opposite - he's pressing too much trying to carry a struggling team & show the world he's a LEGIT (not injury replacement caliber) All Star. The dirty little secret around Blazer land to me is that if force the ball out of Lillard's hands the SG/SF aren't going to consistently make plays on the perimeter to beat you.
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That's fair
 
blue9 said:
There seem to be two approaches going on here. 1) Win vs Lose. 2) How is the team playing?
You certainly seem to be coming from the W/L camp. I can't speak for Kaydow, but it seems like they are coming from Camp 2. And I've always been firmly entrenched in Camp 2. I couldn't care less about our W/L record, or individual wins and losses. That doesn't concern me so much. But I'm quite concerned about HOW we've been playing. The offense is dog shit, regardless of who is on the court. We rely on making extremely difficult shots, and because we have quite a talented roster we make a lot of difficult shots. But that's not good basketball.
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I agree with you to a point. But ultimately what matters is wins. The offense was not "dog shit" in the win in Houston. I'm betting it won't be considered "dog shit" if they beat the Spurs. Making difficult shots is part of the game. That is exactly how teams have beat the Blazers for the most part. Huge shots by great players like Dirk and Curry, Westbrook and Harden. The Utah game sucked to watch and i have absolutely no idea what happened there but last night The Blazers offense was not in question until a great defensive team locked them down. If they make a couple shots the entire game is played differently at the end.
You just can't say a team that is in the top 10 in scoring has a dog shit offense and make much sense of it.
 
kjironman1 said:
Making difficult shots is part of the game. That is exactly how teams have beat the Blazers for the most part...
You just can't say a team that is in the top 10 in scoring has a dog shit offense and make much sense of it.
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Sure, it's PART of the game. But for us it seems to be 80% of the game, and that's much too large a part.
Other teams have beat us on tough shots - but they stayed in the game by creating (and making) easier shots. MEM scored 54 in the paint last night - that's what kept them in the game. How'd we stay in the game? With Blake nailing three 3s - including ridiculous, fall-away buzzer beaters - in the span of 90 seconds. It's fun and exciting, but not good basketball.
And our team FG% has fallen into the bottom 1/3rd of the league: http://espn.go.com/nba/statistics/team/_/stat/offense-per-game/sort/fieldGoalPct
Maybe that doesn't fit your definition of "dog shit", but it's certainly not good.
 
Also, our defense was holding on without Lopez (but with Freeland), but since Jan 1 we're one of the bigger regressers on D.

 
julius said:
At one point in the season, the division lead was safe and it seemed almost impossible for OKC to catch up to the Blazers.

Now? Not so much.

Portland has 19 losses, OKC has 25.

So, now with 26 games, OKC only has to finish with 7 more wins than Portland. And at the rate they've been going, that isn't actually difficult.

Portland has played 55 games, OKC has played 56. But Portland has 12 of their 27 games at home, whereas OKC has 15 of their remaining 26 at home.

With how Portland has played for the better part of a month now (and especially the last 2 "games"), it's not out of the realm of possibility for that to happen.

The best record OKC could go vs the worse Portland would have to go to win the division:

OKC vs POR
26-0 vs 20-7
25-1 vs 19-8
24-2 vs 18-9
23-3 vs 17-10
22-4 vs 16-11
21-5 vs 15-14
20-6 vs 14-13
19-7 vs 13-14
18-8 vs 12-15

In other words, the Blazers better get their shit together soon, or they're going to give OKC a lot of reason to believe they can win the division.
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> Do you think the distinct difference is a season injury for Durant or will it be lethargic Blazers work like the Utah and Memphis games. JKersey passes away and no rally for his honor??? Blake changes his number, plays great and no one else steps into the foul line to basket zone to stop the Grizz from handing us the home loss??
 
BrianFromWA said:
Also, our defense was holding on without Lopez (but with Freeland), but since Jan 1 we're one of the bigger regressers on D.

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>Exactly...... that Grizz game is a case in point.
 
blue9 said:
Sure, it's PART of the game. But for us it seems to be 80% of the game, and that's much too large a part.
Other teams have beat us on tough shots - but they stayed in the game by creating (and making) easier shots. MEM scored 54 in the paint last night - that's what kept them in the game. How'd we stay in the game? With Blake nailing three 3s - including ridiculous, fall-away buzzer beaters - in the span of 90 seconds. It's fun and exciting, but not good basketball.
And our team FG% has fallen into the bottom 1/3rd of the league: http://espn.go.com/nba/statistics/team/_/stat/offense-per-game/sort/fieldGoalPct
Maybe that doesn't fit your definition of "dog shit", but it's certainly not good.
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Honestly i really am not disagreeing with you on this at all. The offense has not looked good over the last number of games when they lose. Even when they have won it has not been as good as it has been. But we all know it can be very very good when they are playing well. Something tells me there will be a spark again. The Batum problems might have been helped out with some rest. Some scoring off the bench has been added and i can't explain Wes last night at all but my guess would be he will not shoot that poorly again any time soon. Lillard will get his back when they all start playing well again. Looks to me like he is trying to do too much. Aldridge is still there and i'm just not ready to panic at this point. My feeling is to stay the course and go as far as you can this year. This summer look to improve again. The window is opening for this team.
 
Draco said:
Blazers had a very familiar system with few new players and easy schedule to start both of the last two seasons. I think other teams take awhile to adjust to new faces and new schemes whereas we come out of the gate at full throttle. Last year we had all the close wins by a few points early on but that was balanced out by a bunch of close losses. This year we had a bunch of great 4th quarters but the last month we've lost most of those close games.

I'm less concerned with winning the division than having the team playing well.

The biggest positive this year has been the defense; its been elite at times. So if we are healthy in the playoffs we have a chance. But I'd say odds are strongly against us making the WCF this year and losing in the first round is certainly a very real possibility.
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> If we play the Grizz "we is done". Houston, S A and Dallas are killers too. The Western conference is a nasty up hill struggle. March around the corner and April next stop. The fourth Q D and scoring potential are off center and worry me.
 
stampedehero said:
> If we play the Grizz "we is done". Houston, S A and Dallas are killers too. The Western conference is a nasty up hill struggle. March around the corner and April next stop. The fourth Q D and scoring potential are off center and worry me.
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We've proven we can beat Houston this year. Not afraid of them at all.
We had Golden State beat until a player tossed a terrible inbounds pass.(player will be nameless)
Dallas isn't as good anymore now that they have Rondo. Not afraid of them in a 7 game series.
We've beat OKC 4 times in 6 trys over the past two seasons... When it should have been more wins VS them.. Last year they gave Aldridge a WIDE OPEN 2 pointer for the game. He knocks that down it's 5 out of 6 vs them.
The Clippers are a little scary because they're going to get preferential treatment by the ref's because of all the complaining.
The Spurs are the Champs.
Over the past two seasons Memphis has had the Blazers number...

Only a couple teams the Blazers wouldn't be favored to beat in the playoffs.
Spurs/Warriors/Memphis prolly. The other 4 the Blazers should be favored and should win.
 
honkicracker said:
We've proven we can beat Houston this year. Not afraid of them at all.
We had Golden State beat until a player tossed a terrible inbounds pass.(player will be nameless)
Dallas isn't as good anymore now that they have Rondo. Not afraid of them in a 7 game series.
We've beat OKC 4 times in 6 trys over the past two seasons... When it should have been more wins VS them.. Last year they gave Aldridge a WIDE OPEN 2 pointer for the game. He knocks that down it's 5 out of 6 vs them.
The Clippers are a little scary because they're going to get preferential treatment by the ref's because of all the complaining.
The Spurs are the Champs.
Over the past two seasons Memphis has had the Blazers number...

Only a couple teams the Blazers wouldn't be favored to beat in the playoffs.
Spurs/Warriors/Memphis prolly. The other 4 the Blazers should be favored and should win.
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> Thanks Very good stats....
 
stampedehero said:
> Thanks Very good stats....
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About as good as your "stats" were. At least I gave reasons rather than just say the Blazers will lose vs every team in the west
But "we is done" is an amazing "stat line"

SMFH
 
honkicracker said:
About as good as your "stats" were. At least I gave reasons rather than just say the Blazers will lose vs every team in the west
But "we is done" is an amazing "stat line"

SMFH
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Umm... he complimented you... why did you get so defensive? lol.
 
Strenuus said:
Umm... he complimented you... why did you get so defensive? lol.
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Didn't sound like it. I didn't give any stats other than the thunder and pointing to the win we have over Houston.
Doesn't look like a complement : /
 
Sometimes things get lost in print. I know i have said some stuff that i meant as a compliment or even a joke and they just didn't come across that way in writing. This is pretty much a friendly forum. Sometimes it's best to just assume that i guess.
 
Here is the next think about Division lead or just plain Playoffs in general. Tonight the Griz went into LA on a B2B and beat the Clippers. then Utah takes the Spurs down. At this point there is still a lot of games left and this is no time to count our Blazers out.
 
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