Game 13: Portland vs Dallas 5:30pm Root,Root+

[DaVoiceMaster]

Dislikes:
- Our starting SG, Hart... Dude, are you OK? 0/9? Make a freakin' shot! Also, Start Little! After that shooting performance... Start Little. Hart can always earn it back.

Seems a little reactionary to one game. Little didnt do much last night either. Hart is the hustle this team needs, particularly Lillard who has spent his entire career walking the ball up the court and dribbling out the shot clock. Nurkic and Winslow make a difference in that game. The real issue was the defense against Doncic. He had a field day against Lillard and particularly Simon's. The Blazers/Billups didnt make any changes to that, whereas the Mavericks did when the Blazers tried to switch up the Mav's defense when they switched Doncic on Lillard. They quickly double-teamed and were able to move Doncic off Lillard.

[monopoman]

Hart has been pretty incredible in my opinion, he has been nabbing rebounds like it's nothing and has hit more than a few clutch shots. His defense has likely been above league average I would say by the eye test, one rough game does not counteract the 12 games before that. It's to the point that if we watch him walk out the door at the end of the season I will be pretty damn annoyed, especially if that first 12 games is what is expected to happen over the next 69.

Again no team in the NBA has played as hard or a harder schedule with as many wins, the Blazers have played better or as good as almost every team that has more wins then they have. Strength of Schedule doesn't mean much 70 games in, but it sure means a lot when some teams play mostly bottom feeders 13 games in and other teams are facing mostly playoff teams.

[BlazersBroncos]

Were not going to win them all and I liked the effort we gave against a DAL team absolutley desperate for a win. If DAL loses, coming off a 0-2 road trip against poor teams, they may have gone into a bit of panic mode. It took a wild 3PT barrage to get the W. I can live with that.

The bench was crap last night. Watford was abysmal defending the PNR, Wood just ate his lunch. Sharpe was super passive (And it didnt help that Ant missed him open a few times). Dame played well, shot wasnt hitting so he attacked and fed Grant - I like that adjustment.

Ant just hasnt taken much of a step forward in decision making or defense IMO. He has improved his FTR quite a bit, thats good, but in his effort to attack more he is making tons of terrible passes once the defense collapses. I think his shot will come around and end up in the 40% range, but I think we need to let him move off ball more and use Grant a bit more in a create role - he has just been better there so far this year.

Eubanks gives his best but has limits, I still like him as C2 more than Watford (Who makes some great passes but has alot of other deficiencies). Tall, lanky, athletic guys like Woods will give all our C options a hard time IMO. If Winslow was healthy, he actually would be the guy I would want to try on Woods - he has the strength to disrupt him on his rolling IMO but is foot quick enough to stay with him and not foul. We really missed him last night.

Good effort, again you cant win them all and the game was nearly ours until a wild 3PT showing late.

[JasonStern]

Bummer as it was a winnable game. But it is what it is. That Luka kid is pretty good at basketball.

[DaVoiceMaster]

I'd like to see the Blazers fight through screens a bit more and recover rather than just switching everything. Walker is actually really good at switching back quickly (recover). I wish others would do that. I'd also like to see a little double dreamlike Dallas did against Liklard last night, but you have to leave the right player open and not their shooters like happened with Dallas. They should have left Bullock open all night and not Dinwiddie and whoever else hit the 3's down the stretch.

[monopoman]

Oh and throwing more fire on the Josh Hart has been incredible throughout the first 13 games of the season check this out.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ripcity/comments/yv2iqt/josh_hart_leading_the_team_in_total_minutes/

Josh Hart leading the team in total minutes, rebounds, assists and steals through 13 games, for those that don't want to click the reddit link above.